The Senate has kept the polity enthralled since one of them, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, challenged the oppressive manner the red chamber administers itself in the name of rules. In their tradition, lawmakers are conditioned to surrender constitutionally guaranteed freedoms to the whims of a cabal.

It?s much like a secondary school scenario, where a class monitor is imposed from outside to call out noisemakers. If you?re not a friend of the monitor, who is also a bully, you?re likely to be in trouble all the time. The ridiculous situation in our legislatures is that lawmakers have to ingratiate themselves with the leadership to be recognised and patronised.

That was the setting the senator who represents Kogi Central found herself and was constrained to speak out. That didn?t seem the political thing to do because those who attempted to set themselves free in the past were cowed by intimidation.

That?s not the discourse for today but that?s where the drama started. On that fateful day, the senator was commanded by the Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, to vacate her seat and relocate somewhere else.

The senator thought that was a needless personal affront that she linked to a previous private request she had to turn down. Her further efforts to elucidate the issues in the media was considered an escalation that disregarded the Senate rules. She was suspended for six months without due process.

If Akpabio and the Senate desired that her suspension would calm nerves and sweep the weightier allegations under the carpet, that did not happen. Senator Natasha took matters to the inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting at the United Nations in New York. There, the senator demanded justice and intervention from global democratic institutions.

She said: ?Five days ago, on the 6th of March, 2025, I was suspended as a senator illegally because I submitted a petition of sexual harassment against the President of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio. I thought that by submitting the petition, he would recuse himself and both of us would submit ourselves to the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition for a fair and transparent investigation, but unfortunately, I was silenced and I was suspended.?

At that Women in Parliament Session, she lamented that if an elected senator representing her constituency (with 474,554 registered voters) could be treated in the manner she was handled, it is better imagined what her women folks with less visibility and exposure are going through in her home country.

In her words: ?My suspension is not just about me; it?s about the systemic exclusion of women from political leadership in Nigeria. This is a clear case of political victimisation, punishment for speaking out against impunity, corruption and gender-based violence.?

In their history, when the Senate goes after any member with highhanded sanctions, the victim simply retreats home to nurse the injury. Nobody confronts the leadership without dire consequences. Senator Abdul Ningi was sent home for confessing that the 2024 budget had a clone that was operated alongside the original.

He didn?t get sympathy, not even from his fellow opposition lawmakers. He was sent home with bruised ego. Even ranking Senator Ali Ndume, was demoted for daring to complain that Nigerians were hungry. As a member of the ruling party, his people thought it was an offence to speak up when you?re eating. Senators prefer to remain mum in the face of injustice so that they get appointed into ?juicy? committees.

Senator Natasha, lawyer and rights campaigner has disrupted that history. In the name of so-called rules, senators and representatives across the country don?t speak up against misrule and oppression by principal officers. The Senate, for a pot of porridge, has imprisoned itself and outsourced its sovereignty to the executive arm. Many opposition lawmakers are unable to freely express an opinion that counters the one-party rule that is imposed by Aso Rock. Their leadership is imposed and their rules are tailored to make the Presidency happy.

Senator Natasha?s show of defiance should not be misconstrued as hubris to market herself. She is already well-marketed in the battles that saw her emerge among just four female senators out of 109 members. She has only reminded Nigerians that democratic freedom is available to them and they are the ones who will decide how much of it they wheel. It?s a shame that some women are among her traducers, women who do not know their right from their left. They are available for rent.

After she had sufficiently exposed the shenanigans in the Nigerian Senate to the international community and the idea of her continued stay had become a fright to her opponents, they shifted the drama and plot to Kogi, where they recruited fifth-columnists to engineer her recall. Their only solution to Natasha was to manipulate her expulsion from the House. Before daybreak, petitions had been corralled from Kogi Central and the independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) didn?t waste time in attending to that. But it turned out that the petition failed to meet the requirement of the law. They did not have the numbers to recall the senator and that ended the drama last week.

Only God knows what their next plot would be, to see the back of Natasha. God has been very kind to her, to surround her with constituents who love her. Before she ventured into politics, she had been into advocacy and philanthropy. In less than two years in the Senate, she had become the cynosure of all eyes. Not by design but plain hard work. Constituency projects that were thought to be impossible became easy for her constituents. Not many senators would be happy because she had set a high benchmark for them.

Despite the conspiracy to restrict her movement at home, she flew in a Trojan Horse to enter Troy, above the obstacles and arrived in the manner of amazon. She re-enacted the heroic strides of the Queen Aminas and Funmilayo Ransome Kutis of old. Those ancestors would all be proud of her. Kogi Central, you?re too lucky to have Natasha. Don?t let her go.

Grief in Edo

That tragedy in Uromi, Edo State, where 16 travellers conveyed in a truck going up North for Sallah holiday were waylaid and gruesomely murdered by vigilantes could have been avoided if governance had not gone to sleep. It was another tragedy waiting to happen in today?s Nigeria where life has become short and brutish. The government must take full responsibility for it and for similar killings that are taking place across the country with little or no resistance by the State.

The security of life and property is the number one reason there is a government. The Constitution imposes this responsibility on the leadership. But for too long and repeatedly, the human life has become cheap, with the difference being just the casualty numbers and the gruesomeness.

The Constitution guarantees the right to life for every citizen and says no one shall be deprived intentionally of this right unless it is recommended by a court as compensation for an offence. It is the norm however, for Nigerians to be killed by bandits and terrorists.

In early March, more than 20 people were reported killed by gunmen in four communities in Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State. The affected communities are Aba Alajido, Aba Sunday, Aba Pastor and Ademekun. They were killed in midnight attacks, just the way killings are reported all over the country.

A victim who survived the attack in Akure North said: ?They attacked our communities on Friday night when everyone was asleep. They opened fire on anyone in sight. So many ran into the bush for safety while some unlucky ones were killed in the villages.?

According to him it was on Sunday (more than 24 hours after) that security men arrived and recovered some corpses. A police officer, Fumilayo Odunlami, a chief superintendent and Police Public Relations Officers of the state claimed the attack was reported to the Command on Saturday and they ?swung? into action on Sunday, after the terrorists had disappeared.

The All Progressives Congress (APC), in 2015, promised to rid the country of all forms of violence, particularly terrorism. Under Muhammadu Buhari, terrorism spread and herdsmen were emboldened to invade communities and inflict havoc. The records are there.

The Tinubu-led administration is spending a lot of resources to combat terrorism but doing little on a political solution that could return the country to an era when nobody encroaches on the space of others.

The military-produced Constitution (1999) provides at Section 41 (1) that every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof. This freedom is however no license to commit crimes and constrain the freedom of other law-abiding citizens.

Government cannot continue to look the other way and allow citizens deprive others their right to life and to do business.

That self-help scenario in Uromi is sad and shouldn?t happen were government to be alive to its duties. According to the reports, there could have been sufficient time for the police to intervene in the rescue of the 16 citizens. That suggests that the present policing efforts are not enough. A lot have been said about state police, but it?s all talk and little action.

We hope the investigations would clarify many questions that have arisen since the incident took place. When things happen in this manner, government is always in a hurry to address matters superficially, and the fundamental issues are left unattended.

In the midst of various troubles, President Tinubu has again gone to France. When he comes back and if he meets Nigeria in one piece, he should ensure justice is done for the dead and for the living. Let investigations be thorough, to unravel the entire Uromi incident to avoid another tragedy waiting to happen. Nigeria needn?t continue to be run as a no-man?s land, full of man-made tragedies. (The Guardian)

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