The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations and one of the high-ranking senators of the 10th Senate, Senator Solomon Adeola, on Thursday, knocked the Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying she can’t project herself to be larger than the Senate.

The legislator representing Ogun West in a statement issued in Abuja also urged the IPU not to succumb to being used as an instrument of blackmail against the National Assembly.

His reaction comes in the wake of Thursday’s vote of confidence passed on the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

Akpoti-Uduaghan had escalated her dispute with Akpabio, presenting her case at a United Nations forum, International Parliamentary Union, alleging political victimisation

She was suspended on March 6 after a heated confrontation with the Senate leadership over a new seating arrangement, which she claimed was designed to undermine her.

Tensions intensified when Akpoti-Uduaghan, on national television, accused Akpabio of punishing her for rejecting his alleged sexual advances.

Speaking at the Women in Parliament session during the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting at the United Nations in New York, Akpoti-Uduaghan called for international intervention to hold the Nigerian Senate accountable.

But Adeola insisted that Akpoti-Uduaghan was suspended for flagrant violation of the Senate Standing Orders and the constitution of Nigeria.

He said, “As a member of the 10th Senate with experience as a member of the 8th and 9th Senate, I make bold to say that Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan was in gross violation of the Senate Standing Orders and the Senate did the appropriate thing in her suspension.

“We are all senators-elect until sworn in. It is only then that we become Senators under oath to abide by the Constitution and the Standing Orders”

According to him, Akpoti-Uduaghan did not exhaust the internal mechanisms available to her to address her grievance.

The APC chieftain also affirmed that by filing a lawsuit against the presiding officer and the Senate, her petition cannot be entertained in the upper chamber until the court decides on the said suit.

“The Senate as an institution derives its power from the Constitution to make rules for its orderly conduct. The outcome of its decisions can be challenged, but the Senate cannot be stopped from functioning as an arm of government,” Senator Adeola stated.

On her alleged sexual harassment against Akpabio, the Ogun lawmaker explained that making such a bold claim without concrete evidence against the Senate leadership amounts to an affront against the institution of Nigeria’s parliament.

He also dispelled speculation that female senators are suppressed, silenced and oppressed, adding that all honour and courtesies due to any senator are accorded to them within and outside the Red Chamber.

The senator also commended the House of Representatives Committee Chairperson on Women Affairs and Nigeria’s representative at the International Parliamentary Union, Khafilat Oghara for standing for the truth.

“I want to call on the IPU, not to be coaxed to do anything that will diminish the status of the parliament as the bastion of democracy. IPU should not succumb to being used as an instrument of blackmail against a national institution of parliament.” Adeola stated.

He also praised the IPU president for not ‘swallowing’ the allegations of Akpoti-Uduaghan hook, line and sinker.

According to him, the Kogi legislator remains suspended until she fulfils the conditions offered for her suspension to be reconsidered or if a court of competent jurisdiction decides otherwise in her case.

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