{"id":70237,"date":"2025-07-10T15:05:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T15:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=70237"},"modified":"2025-07-10T15:05:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T15:05:18","slug":"senate-replaces-natasha-as-committee-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/07\/10\/senate-replaces-natasha-as-committee-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Replaces Natasha as Committee Chair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Nigerian Senate has replaced Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as Chair of the Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations, appointing Senator Aniekan Bassey of Akwa Ibom North-East as her successor.<\/p>\n<p>Senate President Godswill Akpabio made the announcement during plenary on Thursday. Though no official reason was given for the change, it is widely seen as a continuation of the fallout from Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s ongoing suspension from Senate activities.<\/p>\n<p>Akpoti-Uduaghan, who represents Kogi Central, was originally appointed to the Diaspora Committee in February following her removal as Chair of the Senate Committee on Local Content.<\/p>\n<p>She was later suspended, a move which sparked legal action.<\/p>\n<p>In May, Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court ruled the suspension excessive and unconstitutional, ordering her reinstatement and directing her to tender an apology to the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>However, Senate leadership has insisted that it has not yet received a Certified True Copy (CTC), of the court\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in a televised interview earlier this week, Akpoti-Uduaghan said she is awaiting the official judgment before returning to the Red Chamber, citing legal advice and due process.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a legal opinion dated July 5 from Senate legal counsel Paul Daudu (SAN), contends that the court ruling does not explicitly compel the Senate to reinstate her.<\/p>\n<p>Akpoti-Uduaghan, one of just three female senators in the 10th National Assembly, has decried the situation, saying her exclusion undermines her constituents and worsens gender imbalance in governance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcluding me from the Senate isn\u2019t just a disservice to Kogi Central, it\u2019s a setback for the representation of Nigerian women and children. We\u2019ve gone from eight female senators to just three,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata The Nigerian Senate has replaced Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as Chair of the Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations, appointing Senator Aniekan Bassey of Akwa Ibom North-East as her successor. Senate President Godswill Akpabio made the announcement during plenary on Thursday. Though no official reason was given for the change, it is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":70238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-70237","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\/70237","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70239,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70237\/revisions\/70239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}