{"id":61633,"date":"2025-02-20T17:55:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T17:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=61633"},"modified":"2025-02-20T17:55:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T17:55:22","slug":"senate-erupts-as-akpabio-orders-senator-natashas-removal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/02\/20\/senate-erupts-as-akpabio-orders-senator-natashas-removal\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Erupts as Akpabio Orders Senator Natasha\u2019s Removal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Ifeoluwa Odunayo\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A heated confrontation erupted in the Senate on Thursday after Senate President Godswill Akpabio ordered the removal of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (Kogi Central), for refusing to relocate to a reassigned seat.<\/p>\n<p>The drama unfolded after Senate Chief Whip Mohammed Monguno reported that Natasha defied the seat adjustment, which followed the defection of two opposition senators to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).<\/p>\n<p>Citing Senate rules, Monguno affirmed Akpabio\u2019s authority to reassign seats and deny recognition to senators who fail to comply.<\/p>\n<p>However, Natasha pushed back, accusing Akpabio of silencing her and blocking her legislative efforts. \u201cI don\u2019t care if I am silenced. I am not afraid of you,\u201d she declared defiantly.<\/p>\n<p>As Akpabio ordered her removal, fellow senators, including Austin Akobundu, intervened, preventing a forceful ejection.<\/p>\n<p>Tensions ran high until Kogi Senate Caucus Chairman Isa Jibrin stepped in, offering an apology on Natasha\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n<p>After a heated standoff, Natasha eventually yielded, and proceedings resumed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ifeoluwa Odunayo\u00a0 A heated confrontation erupted in the Senate on Thursday after Senate President Godswill Akpabio ordered the removal of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (Kogi Central), for refusing to relocate to a reassigned seat. The drama unfolded after Senate Chief Whip Mohammed Monguno reported that Natasha defied the seat adjustment, which followed the defection of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":61634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-61633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61635,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61633\/revisions\/61635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}