Last July, Nigeria\u2019s third-most powerful man gave a rare apology on the floor of the senate which he heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Godswill Akpabio had chastised his colleague Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan for speaking out of turn, saying: \u201cWe are not in a nightclub\u201d. But after receiving what he said was a deluge of insulting text messages from Nigerians, he apologised publicly a few days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent weeks, the two have been at the centre of a political row that has gripped the country, after an interview that Akpoti-Uduaghan gave to the broadcaster Arise TV in late February in which she accused Akpabio of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She alleged that in one incident Akpabio had told her that a motion she was trying to advance could be put to the senate if she \u201ctook care\u201d of him. In another, she said that on a tour of his house he had told her \u2013 while holding her hand \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m going to create time for us to come spend quality moments here. You will enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Akpabio has denied the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Akpoti-Uduaghan submitted a petition to the senate alleging sexual harassment, but on 6 March the ethics committee struck it out on procedural grounds. It also\u00a0handed her a six-month suspension without pay, citing her \u201cunruly and disruptive\u201d behaviour during an unrelated argument in the senate about seating arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The accusations have dominated conversations and highlighted longstanding women\u2019s rights issues in the socially conservative country, where no woman has ever been elected governor, vice-president or president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only four women serve in the 109-member senate, a drop from the seven female senators elected in 2015. The number of women in the 360-member House of Representatives has also declined, from 22 in 2015 to 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a phone interview from New York on Monday last week, hours before speaking on the matter at a joint session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women, Akpoti-Uduaghan railed against her suspension. \u201cThis was orchestrated to silence my voice,\u201d she said. \u201cThat action is an assault on democracy \u2026 I am not apologising for speaking my truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Women\u2019s rights groups have condemned her suspension, and hundreds of women and girls marched in the states of Lagos, Enugu, Edo and Kaduna on Wednesday during a \u201cWe are all Natasha\u201d protest convened by the civil society coalition Womanifesto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHer suspension and the process that led to it was a shambolic show of shame,\u201d said Ireti Bakare-Yusuf, a radio broadcaster and founder of the non-profit Purple Women Foundation, which is part of Womanifesto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahmed Tijani Ibn Mustapha, a spokesperson for Akpabio, said Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s petition alleging sexual harassment had not followed guidelines because she had authored and signed it herself rather than asking another senator to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also said that after she had refiled the petition correctly, the senate began a four-week investigation into the claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Akpoti-Uduaghan, an opposition People\u2019s Democratic party (PDP) senator from the central state of Kogi, first tried to enter politics in 2019 with a run for Kogi governor. Thugs reportedly loyal to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) jeered her during the campaign,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>calling her a sex worker, and on one occasion attacking her and her driver. \u201cThis is definitely not an election,\u201d she told reporters\u00a0at the time. \u201cThis is almost like a war zone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four years later, on the eve of the senate election she was contesting, portions of the main roads leading to her district were excavated overnight. She accused the APC of attempting to prevent her from campaigning. Authorities said they were\u00a0protecting residents\u00a0against terrorist attacks, citing a December 2022 bomb blast by an Islamic State affiliate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She lost the election, but in November 2023 a tribunal overturned the results, paving the way for her to become one of Nigeria\u2019s youngest senators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Akpabio, a political veteran, was the subject of another sexual harassment allegation from a former public official in 2020. He denied the allegation at the time and recently said he would sue his accuser. He had previously made headlines in 2018 when he predicted an election victory for his APC party by\u00a0drawing comparisons\u00a0with Hitler\u2019s invasion of Poland. Last year, shortly after becoming senate president, he was involved in another controversy when a senator was suspended for saying there were inconsistencies in the budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s suspension, other senators coalesced around Akpabio, a powerful ally of the country\u2019s president, Bola Tinubu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One male senator said Akpoti-Uduaghan had fabricated the claims because she was angered by her removal as chair of a coveted senate committee in February. Current female senators dismissed her claims on national TV, while one former senator said Akpoti-Uduaghan\u2019s claims were \u201ca sign of weakness\u201d and that sexual harassment happened only in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMale senators do not surprise me,\u201d said Bakare-Yusuf of the reaction. \u201cThey mansplain even the basic of black and white to justify their selfishness. As for the female senators, disappointed is an understatement [but] like all hegemonic structures, patriarchy also has gatekeepers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the aftermath of her accusation, a false claim that Akpoti-Uduaghan had borne six children by six different men surfaced on social media. The senate spokesperson said a kiss she shared with her husband on the senate premises before submitting her petition was \u201cunspeakable\u201d and\u00a0an act of \u201ccontent creation\u201d. Over the last two weeks, crowds of pro-Akpabio protesters have turned up in public to abuse her in Abuja.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPoliticians sided with the senate president whom they believe has the power to grant them favours \u2026 and the poor were paid by those who have the most money to protest,\u201d said Glory Ehiremen, senior analyst at Lagos-based geopolitical risk advisory, SBM Intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some opposition senators have visited Akpoti-Uduaghan to show support. She also said she had received supportive emails from women across Nigeria, including some who were afraid to speak up about their own experiences. \u201cIn Nigeria, most women who are sexually harassed in workplaces don\u2019t even tell their husbands because they are afraid of being judged,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the episode unfolds, more women are praising her bravery, but few think Nigeria\u2019s #MeToo moment has arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ehiremen said an entrenched culture of impunity was a barrier to justice. \u201cThe elite Nigerian cannot get justice unless they have alliances with the \u2018powerful\u2019,\u201d she said. \u201cNever mind the ordinary Nigerian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last July, Nigeria\u2019s third-most powerful man gave a rare apology on the floor of the senate which he heads. Godswill Akpabio had chastised his colleague Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan for speaking out of turn, saying: \u201cWe are not in a nightclub\u201d. But after receiving what he said was a deluge of insulting text messages from Nigerians, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,36],"tags":[7,30,38],"class_list":{"0":"post-40246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-lifestyle","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-lifestyle"},"yoast_head":"\n