SENATOR NATASHA: HURIWA ASKS AKPABIO TO STOP LEGISLATIVE INANITIES, LAWLESSNESS
Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko
The persistent refusal of the Senate President Mr. Godswill Akpabio to reinstate the suspended Senator representing Kogi central Senatorial zone Senator Barrister Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan despite a binding judgment of the Federal High Court has been described as a show of shame and the celebration of legislative ‘rascality’, inanities and crude lawlessness.
“The actions of the Senate leadership towards Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan a woman, and the optics from the primitive attempts made by security forces to block Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from accessing the National Assembly depicts Nigeria under the current dispensation as a banana Republic, HURIWA lamented.
Making the observation is the leading pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) which described the action of the Nigeria Police Force, other security services deployed by the Senate President Godswill Akpabio to block Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as disgraceful acts of disrespect for the court of competent authority which exercised the power clothed on the judiciary by virtue of section 6 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended. “The actions of the police is deemed a high treason and a flagrant disregard of the provisions of the nation’s Grund Norm which must be rejected and hereby condemned as an intolerable crime against the constitution.
“The Senate President must be told in clear terms that his over-fixation on actively restraining from accessing the National Assembly and also illegally maintaining the suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan even after the Federal High Court had ruled in plain English language that the 6 months suspension was excessive and thereby ordered her immediate reinstatement is absolutely despicable and reprehensible.
The Senate President must stop bringing global opprobrium by insisting on the disreputable and unconstitutional suspension of a Senator elected by her constituents lawfully to represent their interest in the National Assembly.”
Describing as insanely petty and childish the action of the security agents on the express illegal instruction of the Senate President to stop Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from accessing the National Assembly and resume her legitimate duties for Nigeria and the good people of her Senatorial zone, HURIWA has asked the President to direct the Inspector-General of Police to stop his security operatives and also other security heads must withdraw their armed operatives from the unconstitutional and criminal act of restraining Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from accessing the National Assembly.”
HURIWA expressed her solidarity and support for Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan who in the face of the illegality of the security agents made her way into the National Assembly premises in Abuja, after she was initially denied access.
HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko cited media report as indicating that the heroic legislator, Senator Natasha, who was inside a black car, was stopped from entering the National Assembly. The car in front of her, carrying activist Aisha Yesufu, was also stopped from entering the National Assembly.
But later on, she came out of her car and proceeded into the National Assembly on foot, accompanied by some supporters.
“We in HURIWA are absolutely condemning the pettiness of the Senate leadership and we totally deprecate the disobedience of the clear order contained in the verdict rendered by the learned Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja who unambiguously ordered the Senate to recall the suspended Kogi Central Senator, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. What the Senate President is doing now by not obeying the judgment of the Federal High Court is tantamount to waging a war against the judiciary.
Delivering judgement few days back, Justice Nyako described as excessive the six-month suspension that was imposed on the lawmaker by the Senate.
The judge faulted the provision in Chapter 8 of the Senate Standing Rules, as well as Section 14 of the Legislative Houses, Powers, and Privileges Act, declaring both to be overreaching.
The court also held that Senate President Godswill Akpabio was not wrong to have denied Senator Natasha, who was not in the official seat that was allotted to her, the opportunity to speak during plenary. The court asked her to apologise to the Senate.
Justice Nyako added that the two pieces of legislation failed to specify the maximum period that a serving lawmaker could be suspended from office.
According to the court, since lawmakers have a total of 181 days to sit in every legislative cycle, the six-month suspension handed to Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan was equivalent to pushing her away from her responsibilities to her constituents for approximately 180 days.
It held that though the Senate has the power to punish any of its members who err, such sanction must not be excessive to deprive the constituents of their right to be represented.
Justice Nyako equally dismissed Akpabio’s contention that the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the suit, which he said bordered on an internal affair of the Senate.
HURIWA rejected the weird conclusion by the Senate that the Federal High Court did not expressly ordered the reinstatement of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan just as the Rights group wondered how anyone who passed through even the lowest educational training of a primary school couldn’t apprehend the clear meaning and import of the judgment read by Justice Binta Murtallah-Nyako.
The Rights group said by the virtue of the fact that the six months suspension was deemed excessive by the competent court of law the implied interpretation is that the suspension is thereby nullified just as HURIWA said it was unimaginable that adults in the current National Assembly are talking like toddlers and displaying crass ignorance or may be deliberate mischief in direct breach of a binding judgement of the competent court of law.
In conclusion, HURIWA lamented that the Nigeria Police who should enforce the law are the same agents that have been deployed by the Senate President to obstruct the enforcement of the binding judgement of the Federal High Court, paints Nigeria miserably as a lawless entity. This is not who we are and the earlier the Senate President and his cohorts respect the law, the better for our already soiled and damaged image. Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan must be reinstated immediately without any further legislative inanities.
