All di court cases wey Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan dey face
Dis na just one out of di plenty court cases wey involve Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan, di suspended lawmaker wey dey represent Kogi Central Senatorial District for di National Assembly.
According to tori by local media, Justice Kutigi bin grant di lawyer of Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan, Victor Giwa, permision to serve Akpabio wit di court proceedings thru substituted means, since di senate president bin no show face for court on 7 May, 2025 wey di matter bin suppose start.
Di Judge order Akpabio to show face for di court on Monday, 9 June, 2025. Though e neva dey clear weda dis date go get head since di Nigeria goment don declare am as public holiday for di muslim celebration of Eid-El-Kabir.
Since late February dis year wen di crisis start between di female lawmaker and di senate president Akpabio, na so court cases dey pile up betwin di two. Some of dem na Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan start am, di odas na either di Nigeria goment or Akpabio family start am.
Remember say Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan dey accuse Akpabio of sexual harrasment, wey she claim say e happen several times including for Akpabio house and for di senate premises. However, Akpabio don deny di allegations.
Here na listicle of dis court cases and wetin be di issues:
350 billion naira suit by Mrs Akpabio
Shortly afta Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan accuse Akpabio of sexual harassment during one TV interview, Mrs Ekaette Akpabio, wife of di senate president, call a press conference, wia she tok say she don sue Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan for defamation against her husband.
Akpabio wife say she file two court cases - marked CV/814/25 and CV/816/25 - for di federal high court Abuja, demanding damages of N250 billion and N100 billion respectively.
She tok say di allegations against her husband don cause her and her children "emotional and psychological abuse", and e don make her family to dey live for constant fear of threat to dia lives.
She want make di court restrain Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan from making defamatory statements against di Akpabio family, and for her to withdraw di allegations and tender "unconditional apology to di senate president" wey go dey published for two national newspapers.
100 billion naira suit by Akpoti-Uduaghan
Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan bin also file court case against Godswill Akpabio and imegislative aide, Mfon Patrick, wia she allege say di aide bin post one article on Facebook wey wan damage her reputation.
Di Kogi lawmaker ask di court to order di defendants to pay her N100 billion for damages and anoda N300 million in litigation costs.
Inside di suit, marked CV/737/25, Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan say di post by Mfon Patrick dey "defamatory, provocative, and damaging to her reputation".
Oga Patrick bin make dis post afta di wahala wey happen for di senate chambers on 21 February, 2025, wia Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan bin para and shout for di senate president afta dem change her sitting position.
Di incident wey show for national TV bin see di female lawmaker telling Akpabio say "I am not afraid of you", "I don take a lot from you. I bin no wan go public, but if you want I go let Nigerians know how you don discriminate against me, how you dey malign me..."
Days later, oga Patrick den post di article on Facebook wit di title: "She di Local Content Committee of di Senate be Natasha Birthright?"
Di legislative aide say Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan dey para bicos di Senate President bin remove her as di chairman of dat senate committee.
But di female lawmaker vex for di part wia Patrick say she no sabi anything about being a legislator except to dey "pancake her face and dey wear transparent outfits to di chambers."
Dis remarks, she tok, "dey false and na to ridicule her, damage her credibility, and expose her to public contempt".
Natasha vs Senate, Akpabio, Senate committee
E also get anoda court case wey Natasha file to challenge her six-month suspension from di senate, afta a report by di senate comittee on etichs, privileges, and public petitions.
Di committee bin recommend di suspension afta Natasha fail to appear bifor dem for investigation into her conduct for di senate chambers on February 21.
Natasha hersef explain say she no attend dat investigation sake of say court bin don order di committee to postpone di hearing pending di determination of di matter bifor di court.
But di committee members say dem no dey bound by any court order since dem dey do dia work as independent arm of goment.
Dis matter on weda Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan suspension dey valid or not, dey bifor Justice Binta Nyako of di federal high court Abuja, and e dey expected say sho go deliver di judgement dis July.
AGF vs Natasha
Most recently, di office of di Attorney General of di Federation file anoda court case for di Federal Capital Territory High Court, sake of allegations of defamation against di senate president Godswill Akpabio and di former guvnor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello.
For di three-count charges wey di goment bring against di female lawmaker, dem say Mrs Akpoti-Uduahan bin claim say Akpabio and Bello bin get plans to kill her, and say dis allegation na lie.
According to di AGF, Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan know or she suppose know say "dis imputations go harm di reputation of Senator Godswill Akpabio, President of di 10th senate of di Federal Republic of Nigeria, and di reputation of Yahaya Adoza Bello, former guvnor of Kogi State".
Di witnesses wey di FG say dem go call for dis matter include Akpabio, Yahaya Bello and one oda senator Asuquo Ekpenyong plus three oda pipo.
Dis matter suppose start on Tuesday, 3 June, 2025, but e no come go ahead bicos of strike wey di Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (Jusun) bin start di previous day.
E never dey clear wen di new date go be.
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WAEC speak on report of cancellation of 2025 exam
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The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
Carol Moseley Braun, first black female senator: 'Sexism is harder to change than racism'
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She survived domestic abuse from her father, who could be 'a loving advocate one minute, and an absolute monster the next', and has been guided by her religious faith. In 1966, at the age of 19, she joined a civil rights protest led by Martin Luther King. She recalls by phone: 'He was a powerful personality. You felt drawn into him because of who he was. I had no idea he was being made into a modern saint but I was happy to be there and be supportive. 'When it got violent, they put the women and children close to Dr King in concentric circles and so I was close enough to touch him. I had no idea at the time it was going to be an extraordinary point in my life but it really was.' Moseley Braun was the first in her family to graduate from college and one of few women and Black students in her law school class, where she met her future husband. In the 1970s she won a longshot election to the Illinois general assembly and became the first African American woman to serve as its assistant majority leader. But when she planned a historic run for the Senate, Moseley Braun met widespread scepticism. 'Have you lost all your mind? Why are you doing this? But it made sense to me at the time and I followed my guiding light. You do things that seem like the right thing to do and, if it make sense to you, you go for it.' Moseley Braun's campaign team included a young political consultant called David Axelrod, who would go on to be a chief strategist and senior adviser to Obama. She came from behind to win the Democratic primary, rattling the party establishment, then beat Republican Richard Williamson in the general election. She was the first Black woman elected to the Senate and only the fourth Black senator in history. When Moseley Braun arrived for her first day at work in January 1993, there was a brutal reminder of how far the US still had to travel: a uniformed guard outside the US Capitol told her, 'Ma'am, you can't go any further,' and gestured towards a side-entrance for visitors. At the time she did not feel that her trailblazing status conferred a special responsibility, however. 'I wish I had. I didn't. I was going to work. I was going to do what I do and then show up to vote on things and be part of the legislative process. I had been a legislator for a decade before in the state legislature so I didn't at the time see it as being all that different from what I'd been doing before. I was looking forward to it and it turned out to be all that I expected and more.' But it was not to last. Moseley Braun served only one term before being defeated by Peter Fitzgerald, a young Republican who was heir to a family banking fortune and an arch conservative on issues such as abortion rights. But that did not deter her from running in the Democratic primary election for president in 2004. 'It was terrible,' she recalls. 'I couldn't raise the money to begin with and so I was staying on people's couches and in airports. It was a hard campaign and the fact it was so physically demanding was a function of the fact that I didn't have the campaign organisation or the money to do a proper campaign for president. 'I was being derided by any commentator who was like, 'Look, this girl has lost her mind,' and so they kind of rolled me off and that made it hard to raise money, hard to get the acceptance in the political class. But I got past that. My ego was not so fragile that that it hurt my feelings to make me stop. I kept plugging away.' Eventually Moseley Braun dropped out and endorsed Howard Dean four days before the opening contest, the Iowa caucuses. Again, she had been the only Black woman in the field, challenging long-held assumptions of what a commander-in-chief might look like. 'That had been part and parcel of my entire political career. People saying: 'What are you doing here? Why are you here? Don't run, you can't possibly win because you're not part of the show and the ways won't open for you because you're Black and because you're a woman.' I ran into that every step of the way in my political career.' Since then, four Black women have followed in her footsteps to the Senate: Kamala Harris and Laphonza Butler of California, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. Moseley Braun says: 'I was happy of that because I was determined not to be the last of the Black women in the Senate. The first but not the last. That was a good thing, and so far the progress has been moving forward. But then we got Donald Trump and that trumped everything.' Harris left the Senate to become the first woman of colour to serve as vice-president, then stepped in as Democrats' presidential nominee after Joe Biden abandoned his bid for re-election. Moseley Braun comments: 'I thought she did as good a job as she could have. I supported her as much as I knew how to do and I'm sorry she got treated so badly and she lost like she did. You had a lot of sub rosa discussions of race and gender that she should have been prepared for but she wasn't.' Trump exploited the 'manosphere' of podcasters and influencers and won 55% of men in 2024, up from 50% of men in 2020, according to Pew Research. Moseley Braun believes that, while the country has made strides on race, including the election of Obama as its first Black president in 2008, it still lags on gender. 'I got into trouble for saying this but it's true: sexism is a harder thing to change than racism. I had travelled fairly extensively and most of the world is accustomed to brown people being in positions of power. But not here in the United States. We haven't gotten there yet and so that's something we've got to keep working on.' Does she expect to see a female president in her lifetime? 'I certainly hope so. I told my little grandniece that she could be president if she wanted to. She looked at me like I lost my mind. 'But Auntie Carol, all the presidents are boys.'' Still, Trump has not been slow to weaponise race over the past decade, launching his foray into politics with a mix of false conspiracy theories about Obama's birthplace and promises to build a border wall and drive out criminal illegal immigrants. Moseley Braun recalls: 'It was racial, cultural, ethnic, et cetera, backlash. He made a big deal out of the immigration issue, which was racism itself and people are still being mistreated on that score. 'They've been arresting people for no good reason, just because they look Hispanic. The sad thing about it is that they get to pick and choose who they want to mess with and then they do. It's too destructive of people's lives in very negative ways.' Yet her fellow Democrats have still not found an effective way to counter Trump, she argues. 'The Democratic party doesn't know what to do. It's walking around in a daze. The sad thing about it is that we do need a more focused and more specific response to lawlessness.' Five years after the police murder of George Floyd and death of Congressman John Lewis, there are fears that many of the gains of the civil rights movement are being reversed. Over the past six months Trump has issued executive orders that aim to restrict or eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. He baselessly blamed DEI for undermining air safety after an army helicopter pilot was involved in a deadly midair collision with a commercial airliner. Meanwhile, Washington DC dismantled Black Lives Matter Plaza in response to pressure from Republicans in Congress. None of it surprises Moseley Braun. 'It should have been expected. He basically ran on a platform of: 'I'm going to be take it back to the 1800s. Enough of this pandering and coddling of Black people.'' But she has seen enough to take the long view of history. 'This is normal. The pendulum swings both ways. We have to put up with that fact and recognise that this is the normal reaction to the progress we've made. There's bound to be some backsliding. More than 30 years have passed since Moseley Braun, wearing a peach business suit and clutching her Bible, was sworn into the Senate by the vice-president, Dan Quayle. Despite what can seem like baby steps forward and giant leaps back, she has faith that Americans will resist authoritarianism. 'I'm very optimistic, because people value democracy,' he says. 'If they get back to the values undergirding our democracy, we'll be fine. I hope that people don't lose heart and don't get so discouraged with what this guy's doing. 'If they haven't gotten there already, the people in the heartland will soon recognise this is a blatant power grab that's all about him and making a fortune for himself and his family and has nothing to do with the common good. That's what public life is supposed to be about. It's public service.'
