The statement tagged ‘Senate’s Constitutional Overreach in the Case of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’ followed the expiration of Akpoti-Uduaghan’s six months suspension by the red chamber after she accused the Senate President of sexual harassment.
As the Senate seems not to be comfortable with the presence of the Kogi senator after the suspension, Ezekwesili noted that democracy dies when laws become weapons and lawmakers become serial lawbreakers.
The Senate’s letter dated September 4, 2025, informed Akpoti-Uduaghan that her suspension will continue indefinitely.
She stated, “Six months have passed since the unconstitutional suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan on March 6, 2025. The senator representing the people of Kogi Central Senatorial District was suspended following her allegation of sexual harassment against Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
“These six months have witnessed an unprecedented assault on constitutional principles, judicial authority, and the very foundations of our democratic institutions. Rather than transparently investigate the allegation against the Senate President, an errant political class has used this opportunity to taunt citizens on how successfully they have captured the Nigerian state, perpetrating unlimited abuse with zero accountability or fear of consequences.”
The Senate justified its latest decision with the claim that “the matter remains sub judice,” and that until the judicial process is concluded, no administrative action could be taken to facilitate her resumption.
“This reasoning is fundamentally flawed,” Ezekwesili argued. “The Senate cannot use pending litigation as justification to prolong an already unconstitutional suspension that has exceeded its own prescribed limits.
“When the Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Binta Nyako, ruled that the six-month suspension was ‘excessive’ and violated constitutional principles, the court affirmed what legal scholars had warned: the Senate’s action exceeded reasonable legislative discipline.”
Ezekwesili added that the court’s reasoning was unambiguous, as suspending a lawmaker for six months when the National Assembly sits for only 181 days yearly, effectively denies constituents their right to representation for nearly an entire legislative session.
“I had to write this memo despite my considered decision to stop wasting my effort on an evidently unreasonable political class. There is sufficient reason to believe that those in power have chosen self-destruction, and no counsel can stop them.
“Yet I make one more attempt to caution against this latest democratic assault,” she wrote.
The former Vice President of the World Bank charged the Senate to recall Akpoti-Uduaghan without delay and demonstrate that Nigeria’s commitment to justice, constitutional governance and rule of law is substantive, not rhetorical.
End this hubris now.
She cautioned, “Every day without remedy chips away at democracy’s foundation. Every moment court orders are defied by those in power teaches our children that law is optional for the powerful.
“Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan’s right to resume duties was explicitly affirmed in Justice Nyako’s ruling. She has served out the unconstitutional suspension. Our collective defense of her immediate return defends every Nigerian’s right against public power abuse.”
