“Contrary to the jaundiced views of the senate leader, it is the official probe of the circumstances of her trip by security forces that will expose Nigeria to needless embarrassment and undeserved ridicule,” were the exact words of Femi Falana, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Nigeria’s foremost human rights lawyer, with which he passed a message of caution in the handling of the current case of Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan,per a report in whirlwindnews.com today.
The report added that against the backdrop of concerns being raised that the female Senator, one of the four in the 19th National Assembly, was in deeper trouble for taking her case of suspension from the Senate to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting in New York, which has been interpreted as an embarrassment to Nigeria, Falana warned that such a route is fraught with landmines.
Indeed reports had emerged at the weekend that Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, the man at the centre of sex-for-favour demand allegation from the Kogi Senator, who felt that her taking the case to the IPU was an embarrassment to Nigeria, could go further to institute a probe which could see the Senate stretching her current six-month suspension to indefinite suspension.
A online newspaper had in a report last Sunday indicated that the Department of State Services (DSS) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) had launched a probe into how Akpoti-Uduaghan attended the IPU meeting in New York without an official nomination, adding that the plot at the Senate would see Akpabio stepping down temporarily to give the eventual probe of the Senator some semblance of impartiality after which she would be hammered.
But Falana, warning that Nigeria risked losing further face over the matter, said in statement: “Finally, it is public knowledge that the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio had accused Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of embarrassing the government and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by reporting her suspension by the senate to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.”
“Therefore, the SSS and NIA may study the report of the investigation of our illegal travelling by the Sani Abacha military junta before embarking on the futile attempt to probe senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan for having the temerity to externalise the “internal affair” of the senate.
“In fact, the probe will particularly embarrass some top officials of the Bola Tinubu administration who were once accused of travelling out of Nigeria to embarrass the defunct military junta.”
