Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan has initiated a legal action against the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, citing allegations of defamation.
Gatekeepers News reports that the controversy started when Akpoti-Uduaghan’s Senate seat was reassigned during a reshuffle that took place after several opposition members shifted their allegiance to the majority party.
She opposed this relocation, which resulted in a confrontation with the Senate President.
On February 25, 2025, Akpoti-Uduaghan filed her lawsuit at the Federal Capital Territory High Court. The suit, registered as CV/737/25, names the Senate President, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and Mfon Patrick, the Senior Legislative Aide to the Senate President, as the second and third defendants. Through her attorney, Victor Giwa, Akpoti-Uduaghan claims that defamatory statements were made by Senator Akpabio and subsequently shared by his aide on Facebook.
According to him, the post, titled “Is the Local Content Committee of the Senate Natasha’s Birthright?” included a statement suggesting that Akpoti-Uduaghan believed being a lawmaker was only about “pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the chambers.”
Giwa argued that the statement was defamatory, provocative, and disparaging, lowering his client’s dignity in the eyes of her colleagues and the public.
He stated, “A DECLARATION that the words, ‘It is bottled anger by the Kogi lawmaker, who knows nothing about legislative rules. She thinks being a lawmaker is all about pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the chambers,’ used and written by the third defendant at the prompting of the first and second defendants, is defamatory and intended to cause public opprobrium and disaffection toward the claimant.”
She also urged the court to restrain the defendants and their associates from making further defamatory statements against her on any platform.
“AN ORDER OF PERPETUAL INJUNCTION restraining the defendants, whether acting by themselves or through their agents, privies, assigns, or associates, from further publishing or causing to be published the said defamatory words or any similar publications about the claimant on social media or in any other manner capable of defaming her,” she stated.
Furthermore, Akpoti-Uduaghan asked the court to order the defendants to pay her N100 billion in general damages and N300 million as litigation costs.
“An order for the payment of the sum of N100,000,000,000 as general damages. An order for the payment of the sum of N300,000,000 as the cost of action,” she prayed.
