• Warn Clerk against partisanship
• Get ready to resume, PDP tells Kogi senator
• CSO backs Senate’s decision on return request
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned what it described as a desperate attempt to bar Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from resuming in the Senate after serving her six-month suspension.
It, however, urged the lawmaker representing Kogi Central District to get prepared to resume her duties in the Senate.
In a statement yesterday, PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, faulted the reported action of the Clerk of the National Assembly, which, according to the opposition party, smacks of a calculated move by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Senate leadership to silence Akpoti-Uduaghan and deny the people of Kogi Central their right to representation.
The party described the move as “highly provocative”, stressing that it not only violates the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Standing Rules of the Senate but also poses a grave danger to democratic governance and national stability.
It, therefore, cautioned the Clerk of the National Assembly against being “politically entangled” or allowing himself to be used as a tool to undermine democracy.
In the same vein, a human rights lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), has faulted the Senate’s position that Akpoti-Uduaghan cannot resume legislative duties until her court case is determined.
Adegboruwa, while reacting to a letter issued by the Acting Clerk of the Senate, said the Upper Chamber was over-reaching itself, stressing that the senator’s six-month suspension had already lapsed.
He noted that the ongoing court case concerns only the validity and constitutionality of the six-month suspension, and not her right to resume after serving the punishment.
Also reacting to the development, the National Secretary of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Peter Ameh, has accused the National Assembly of undermining democracy by keeping Kogi Central without representation for more than six months following her suspension.
In the same vein, the Labour Party (LP) has said that the refusal of the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and the 10th National Assembly to immediately implement court judgments reinstating Akpoti-Uduaghan is one of the major reasons Nigeria continues to lose respect globally and repel serious foreign investment.
MEANWHILE, the Centre for Leadership Training (CLT) has urged Akpoti-Uduaghan to wait for the court’s final adjudication on the matter she instituted against the Senate before resuming her legislative duties.
The CLT President, Azuka Francis, who said this yesterday in Abuja while reacting to the Senate’s letter to Akpoti-Uduaghan, warned that attempts to short-circuit due process, whether by misrepresenting timelines or seeking to preempt judicial pronouncements, undermine the rule of law that every legislator has sworn to uphold.
