{"id":62161,"date":"2025-03-05T12:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T12:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=62161"},"modified":"2025-03-05T12:46:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T12:46:57","slug":"senate-drama-natasha-submits-petition-against-akpabio-walks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/03\/05\/senate-drama-natasha-submits-petition-against-akpabio-walks-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Drama: Natasha Submits Petition Against Akpabio, Walks Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Patrick Idowu\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tension gripped the Senate on Wednesday as Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of Kogi Central submitted a sexual harassment petition against Senate President Godswill Akpabio, sparking heated debate and a rowdy session.<\/p>\n<p>Relying on Order 40 of the Senate rules, Akpoti-Uduaghan stated that her comments on Arise TV regarding alleged harassment by Akpabio were not mere allegations but a formal petition worthy of Senate deliberation.<\/p>\n<p>In response, Akpabio allowed her to proceed with the submission, promptly referring it to the Committee on Code of Conduct, Ethics, and Public Petitions.<\/p>\n<p>However, Chief Whip Mohammed Tahir Monguno swiftly objected, arguing that the petition could not be entertained since a related case was already in court.<\/p>\n<p>Quoting Senate rules, he insisted, \u201cThe Senate should not receive or deliberate on any matter pending before a court of law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Akpoti-Uduaghan fired back, dismissing Monguno\u2019s claim. \u201cThis matter is not in court. The case in court is a defamation suit against the Senate President\u2019s aide, not this petition,\u201d she clarified.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele sided with Monguno, declaring the petition \u201cdefective\u201d and insisting that Senate rules could not be relaxed.<\/p>\n<p>He then moved for a closed session, leading to a brief uproar before order was restored.<\/p>\n<p>Frustrated by the resistance, Akpoti-Uduaghan staged a dramatic walkout as the Senate resumed its business for the day.<\/p>\n<p>The controversy leaves lingering questions over the Senate\u2019s handling of internal allegations and whether Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s claims will see the light of day within the chamber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Patrick Idowu\u00a0 Tension gripped the Senate on Wednesday as Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of Kogi Central submitted a sexual harassment petition against Senate President Godswill Akpabio, sparking heated debate and a rowdy session. Relying on Order 40 of the Senate rules, Akpoti-Uduaghan stated that her comments on Arise TV regarding alleged harassment by Akpabio were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":62162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-62161","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\/62161","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=62161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62163,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62161\/revisions\/62163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}