NATASHA FACES SUSPENSION AS SENATE REFERS ALLEGED 'UNRULY CONDUCT' TO ETHICS COMMITTEE FOR PROBE

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Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan(PDP Kogi – Central) may likely be facing impending suspension from the Senate or other punitive measure as the Red Chamber on Tuesday referred her alleged ‘unparliamentary conduct’ to its Committee on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions, for probe.

Akpoti-Uduaghan last Thursday created a scene in chambers during plenary by refusing to accept a new seat allocated to her, and openly defying the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and reading a point of order despite having been ruled out of order.

The resolution of the Senate was sequel to its consideration and adoption of a report presented to it by its Chairman, Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Adeyemi Adaramodu, during plenary.

Adaramadu, had rising on a point of order,

informed the Senate that the uproar during plenary where Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, openly challenged the Senate President over allocation of new seat to her had done grave damage to the image of the Senate.

He said he has been junketing from one media house to another to explain the side of the red chamber on the issue saying that as the image maker of the Senate, it is difficult to mend an image that has been broken to pieces as a result of the posturing of Akpoti-Uduaghan over a simple matter like seat reallocation and committee chairmanship.

The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, Minority Leader, Abba Moro and Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, among others, lamented the conduct displayed by Akpoti-Uduaghan on the fateful day and recommended that the matter be referred to its appropriate organ for further investigation and to report back to the Senate in two weeks.

In his lead debate, Adaramodu said: “Precisely, last week Thursday, February 20, there was what the media called drama on the floor of the chambers, which the Senators will call a kind of procedural infraction.

“Like I said also, that I was seriously unimpassioned to speak on this because the Senate actually got a bloody nose throughout last week over this issue.

“And it bothered seriously on the orders of proceedings in the Senate. And we know that the Standing Orders in the Senate is the Senate’s catechism and this is what rules the Senate because we are ruled by rules, laws, statutes and orders.

“This extreme intransigence and obduracy drew a lot of public comments. The majority of those comments are very negative for the Senate. And precisely it happened to one of our colleagues, that’s Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, who against Order six of our Standing order, whereby the Senate President is variously and particularly strengthened by the statute to allocate seats to senators.

“And we know that within the Senate chamber, a senator can be allocated any seat. And since no senator is allocated a seat outside the Senate chamber, we think that the Senate president is in order in this wise.

“But like I said, that the infraction degenerated to the extent that our colleague disagreed and refused to stand by the orders of the Senate while raising a point of order.

“And we wrote that when you are in the Senate or in the legislature, when you are not in order, you cannot raise a point of order. You have to be in order to ask for order.

“As if this was not enough, the media trolled the Senate variously and precariously from that day till today. And I, as the spokesperson of the Senate, I had to go about trying to mend those broken pieces of the images and integrity of this 10th Senate, which I think should not have happened.

“And like I said, I expected that the Senate is not for skit-making, is not for content creation, whereby we show off before cameras, for the media to take pictures, take snapshots, TikTok, and so on and so forth.

“And then we exhibit so that we can play the underdog, and then the general public, who might be very oblivious of the guiding rules of the Senate, can poohpooh the Senate.

“So this bruhaha went on and up till today and I know because as we are here, some media houses are still inviting me to come and explain further what transpired.

“But, Mr. President, my hunch is not whether a senator can raise any issue within the chamber because we know we enjoy absolute privilege. But absolute privilege is not absolute disobedience.

“I just want to behoove my colleagues know the popular saying that ‘as you make your bed so you shall sleep on it.’

“Are we laying this bed very well and decently for us to sleep very well and have very good dreams for Nigeria? We are all here, 109 of us, Mr. President and my colleagues, sent to this place by our constituents for three major reasons: to make laws for the good governance of Nigeria, to advocate for our various constituencies for that matter, and to do oversight functions of the MDAs.

“Anything outside this, we look at it as privileges, not only the sitting arrangement in the Senate and we all subscribed to the leadership of the 10th Senate under Senate President, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio.

“Like what I experienced, some people, a section of the public are now narrowing it to Mr. Senate President versus the Senator, which is not so, because our guiding rules, which is our testament and our catechism, our own Bible and our own Quran, which we all subscribed to religiously, embodies and epitomizes the whole Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“Any action against it is an action against the Senate. It’s not an action against the Senate president. Mr. President, sir, we were told when we were growing up as toddlers that where there is no law, there is no sin, but we have laws.

“Then it means that any contravention of that law is a sin. And where there is a sin, there must be penalty. And where there is penalty, we expect penitence.

“Furthermore, it’s not about the sitting arrangement only. We are made to see expletives being rained on the leadership of the Senate on the allocation of committees which bewilderedly we ask we voted for as chairmen or committee members? No. We have our primary assignment, secondary and tertiary assignment. These are just ancillary assignments.

“Mr. President, I don’t want to take too much of our time explaining myself off, but like I said, I want the leadership of the Senate to sternly stand by the rules and when infractions are being committed, because we can see a litany of it, that some people have done it before, nothing happened. Some other people are taking it.

“I as your spokesperson and an image maker, when an image is broken beyond recognition then to make that image becomes very herculean, almost impossible.”

In supporting the motion, Senator Jimoh Ibrahim urged the Senate to refer the matter to its relevant committee for further investigation.

Senator Ibrahim said: “In supporting Senator Adaramodu, I want to emphasize that the integrity of the Senate cannot be compromised. This is the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and like you said in the morning, even in the Constitution, section 1, subsection 2, any act of even the National Assembly that is inconsistent with the provision of the Constitution is void to the extent of its inconsistency.

“So any behaviour, any act or omission of any senator that stands inconsistent with the provision of the Red Book – our guideline – is void and of no effect.

“As a matter of fact, the men in chambers are people of integrity. Mr. President, I am very privileged to be here as a Senator, to meet very distinguished names that I have been reading on the front pages of newspapers.

“So, Mr. President, the men that are seated here are men of integrity and their names are protective. Even yourself, Your Excellency, you served as governor for eight years. You have been minister. You have been conferred with national honours. So this integrity cannot be just destroyed in one day.

“Like I said, I quoted you this morning, you said any act of parliament that is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is to the extent of its consistency void and of no effect. We owe the public a duty of explanation which I think Adaramodu has formulated and distilled very well.

“It’s not an emotional matter and we have very many committees in the Senate that handle issues like this. The ethics committee is there. We could refer matters like this to them to give us better diagnosis of the issue and what we can do in accordance with our rule.

“I am not above the law of the Senate and like I said, I am very privileged and I mean it, to come to this floor of the Senate and see men of integrity and honour here that dignify the chamber.

“The chamber is not about you alone, Mr. President, it’s about everybody. And sitting arrangement is something that is not even too significant. I am at the back seat. But I can lend my voice to issues.

“In fact, Mr. Senate President, the former Senate President, very distinguished Senator Ahmad Lawan, is at the very back seat after my own. Look at my own seat. Look at his own seat. And he’s not complaining. He will raise up his hand with respect here and will still go there to bow for his respect because he’s a man of integrity. So can anybody be at the back seat more than him here?

“I am not against Natasha. I’m not for anybody. I’m just saying that the Senate is an institution and that institution needs to have at its dashboard integrity as number one driving force in the dashboard of the Nigerian Senate and our Senate President must be respected.

Senate Leader Bamidele said: “To begin with, Mr. President, be rest assured that you have a vote of confidence as a Senate because this is not about you. This is about us as an institution. This is about our rules and procedure, our practices and convention and parliamentary tradition that we are sustaining in this place…”

Akpabio interjected at this point, saying: “Let me just say something now. Please, just a minute. Those in support of the statement of the leader that the Senate president has the support and the love of the entire 10th Senators. Say, Aiye! And those against say Nay!, the Aiyes have it. So, Senators leader, whatever you said is from the pulpit. You can continue.”

Bamidele went further: “Mr. President, the reason I’m standing up to speak at this time, early enough, is that there is no one of our colleagues here who does not have an opinion on this issue.

“Whether they even speak out or not, everybody has an opinion. But we are all united on one thing. Our rules must be respected because that is what binds us together. People will serve for eight years as governor, chief executive in states. People will serve as honourable ministers of this federal republic and they will still go to the nooks and crannies of their villages and constituencies to go and contest election to come to this hallowed chamber.

“It is because there is something about the Senate and under our watch, we are not going to allow this institution to be discredited. We are not going to leave behind for those coming after us, an institution that is any weaker than what we inherited. So when it comes to protected integrity and credibility of this institution, no one takes it for granted.

“Let me also make it clear to members of public that whole seeming hullabaloo about one of our colleagues, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan being asked to move to another seat, it’s nothing that has to do with gender.

“It’s nothing that has to do with hatred. It’s nothing that has to do with any form of malice. For the record, let me say again, the distinguished senator Adamu Aliero, who had been governor for eight years, who had been honourable minister, and who is one of the most ranking senators in this Senate today was asked to move his seat. And he didn’t make any issue out of it.

“We had a reason to change the seat of his Excellency, Distinguished Senator Aminu Waziri Tambuwa. He didn’t make any issue out of it. Senator Jarigbe Jarigbe, we had a reason to move his seat. He didn’t make an issue. Senator Wadada. We moved his seat. He didn’t make an issue out of it. That’s on the minority side. On the majority side, we had reasons to change the seats of the likes of Senator Wamakko.

Obviously, one of the most ranking senators here, two-time governor before. It didn’t make any issue. Senator Olamilekan we changed his seat. Senator Adeola, that’s the chairman of Appropriation.

“Senator Adetokunbo Abiru, we changed his seat and several other people here. And part of the reason that necessitated our recent decision to change seats was because at least three people, three distinguished colleagues had moved from the minority aisle to the majority aisle.

“First was distinguished Senator Ifeanyi Uba of blessed memory and then Senator Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi moved. And then lately, the distinguished Senator Ned Nwoko moved.

“All of this necessitated a change in our sitting arrangement because we needed to readjust. Of course, I understood why distinguished senator Adaramodu will be concerned. He’s our image maker. He’s our spokesperson. And most of all, listen to the interview that distinguished Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan granted on Brekete family radio.

“She exercised her right to speak but the question was about the contents of what she said whether it was the truth or not. Sir, we have a committee that is in charge of how much of a strength of character will display as elected members of this Senate.

“How much of respect to the rules of this Senate that we display. That is a committee on ethics, privileges and public petition. That committee has a responsibility not only to investigate whatever is alleged, I mean, refusal to obey our rules or display of lack of strength of character, but the committee also has a responsibility to ensure that the privileges of the affected senator are also protected.

“And it is important that rather than all sitting here to debate this issue, that we just allow this matter, most respectfully, to be referred to our committee on ethics, privileges and public petition, so that the committee can deal with this issue and probably in a week or two come back to us and that will form the basis of our further debate and action on this matter.

“What Senator Adaramodu presented was a general report and he had to come under Order 1B because it was not on the other paper for today and he did it well.

“But it was not for him to make any prayer. It was not a substantive motion that he was bringing. He has laid this report before us. I beg most respectfully. Let’s refer this matter to our Senate committee on ethics, privileges and public petition and they will get back to us so that right after this we can go into an executive session and discuss other issues of public importance but on this matter, I pray that we do not debate it any further. Let’s just refer it to the appropriate committee. I so submit.”

The Minority leader, Senator Abba Moro, in his contribution apologized to the Senate and called for the issue to be referred to the ethics committee.

Moro said: “Mr. President, I still want to repeat the apology that was rendered that day, because our rules are clear and these rules are rules that must be obeyed. And so I agree completely. And I want my colleagues to agree completely too.

“Mr. President, we’re sorry for what happened because the Senate has been in the public domain for discussions that are definitely not for what we were elected here.

“And we can avoid this destruction. And like I said, we have committees. And one particular committee is responsible for detecting infractions of our rules and possible recommendations, even sanctions.

“But Mr. President, we see you as first among equals, but as the Presiding Officer of the Senate, and therefore the Father of the Senate. In spite of some provocations, in spite of some offences, Mr. President we ask you to tolerate some of our actions that are not in tandem with democratic and parliamentary practices.

“But please, we want to ask that while we are referring this matter to our relevant committee, let us ponder on the drama that unfolded on that day and see how we can mitigate against the possible consequences on the integrity and the image of this institution so that we can move forward in the interest of this country.”

“I so submit Mr. President. For the second, the motion that the matter should be referred to our committee.

REPORT