Enough of the Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Distraction, Nigeria is much more

Integrity is central not just in public conduct, but in private endeavours. To lack integrity especially in public affairs is an anathema that erodes trust and respect. It is for this reason that it is canvassed that those elected or appointed into public institutions should be individuals that have values of integrity, character and honor.

However, events as orchestrated by the now suspended Kogi Central Senator Natasaha Akpoti-Uduaghan stand in antithesis to the very core of the integrity and decorum expected of a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Without a doubt of a comely personage, Senator Natasha has convinced herself to exploit her charm to undo not just Senate President Godswill Akpabio, but the entire legislative arm in the country. The Kogi senator has succeeded in bringing to opprobrium the institution of the National Assembly by her foxy and preposterous claim of sexual abuse and harassment by Senate President Akpabio,

While Senator Natasha is beautiful, she isn’t the most charming female senator or lawmaker that has graced the hallowed grounds of the National Assembly to warrant such heady attention. Since 1999 when democratic rule staged a comeback, they have been female lawmakers with poise, charm and class that have walked the sacred halls of both chambers and not one has laid such a weighty charge until now.

It is in the light of this that the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, should be commended for laying the gauntlet with clarity over the raging controversy. A senator who was there for 12 solid years and should know better could not have put it any less better when she said, “I know with what is going on in the Senate, you may say, why am I not taking a position? I believe that the Senate is doing what is needful because that’s what it is. It is an inside place and it’s a matured chamber. It’s a mature chamber, and it should be treated with respect. It’s an honour for you to be in that place alone.

“I was there for 12 years, even in my younger days, and I’m still trying to look young, but people compliment you all the time, only that, women raise yourself, don’t be in a position that men will be talking to you anyhow.”

Yes, being a lawmaker for that matter confers on you certain privileges and an expected temperament and decorum. But Senator Natasha like Cersei of the House of Lannister in the fictional fantasy of Game of Thrones typifies the superficial, the paranoid, and laced with delusions of achieving the impossible; destroy a democracy that was hard fought for when she was still a student in the University of Abuja as at 2000.

It remains inconceivable that Senator Natasha was being sexually harassed by Senate President Akpabio but never uttered the unsolicited advances to any soul, not even her husband. It is further irksome to note that the Akpoti-Uduaghans and Akpabios have come a very long way with the Senate President playing a prominent role in her marriage to Alema Emmanuel Uduaghan and this did not matter to the accuser of the grave damage she was doing to such a rich history.

There must be something more. And that something more may not be far from Natasha’s insatiable quest to dominate, to be the centre of all things grand and rewarding. To imagine that she was often in the entourage of the Senate President to Parliamentary meetings outside the country and suddenly the favour was withdrawn to accommodate other senators has become a cardinal sin that must be met with the gravest of allegations; sexual harassment.

Psychoanalysts will recommend she gets a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder to unravel the black box that she appears to be.

A critical element that has been ignored in all of this charade is Natasha’s rise to public conscience. It is not as if she had any rich inheritance to have rapidly gained public acclaim before now with her activism over the troubled Ajakouta steel complex in Kogi state. Where did she get funding from in her several media forays and campaigns which were not by any means cheap? Was she a foreign agent for some foreign interests desperate to have their hands on the prized steel industry? This puzzle has floated round the social sphere for a long time and it will be fitting for the embattled Kogi senator to provide some answers.

While arguments persist as to the lengthy suspension, sexual allegations are weighty and cannot and should not be trivialized. Every institution, the National Assembly inclusive, have their rules and norms which need to be adhered to. If a lawmaking institution is left to “anyhow behaviour,” then citizens will lack the moral authority to question “anyhow laws” from such an institution. What Senator Natasha did by not following the rule book not just as to the seating arrangement, but breaching the rights and privileges of her colleague senators by going on national television to levy such weighty allegations deserves the severity of sanctions.

For a lawmaker that simply lacks an understanding of the rules that guides and governs the institution that she was elected to simply, means it has been about pancakes and photo moments. It has become apparent that she lacks the skills, tools, and intelligence to be an effective representative of her people. If she were otherwise, she would be focused, diligent, strategic and not be undone by her own paranoia which has resulted in her own fall from grace and naked walk of shame.

It is time Nigerians move on to more pressing issues like the N54 trillion budget that was recently passed, the attempt to whittle down the supervision of political parties by the INEC and holding government to scrutiny on issues of insecurity. Enough of the Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan distraction!

Isa Jaji writes from Kontagora, Niger State.