Following the filing of criminal charges against her by Mohammed Abubakar, the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation (DPPF), the already tense relationship between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and the Senate leadership took a new turn..CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
There have been a variety of responses to the state’s decision to file a lawsuit against the senator, who is temporarily suspended and represents Kogi Central for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), according to The Nation.
The three-count case (marked CR/297/25) against Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan was filed on May 15 in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court. It alleges that she made remarks with the intent to harm people’s reputations. She is accused on the first count of accusing Senate President Godswill Akpabio of plotting her murder with former Kogi Governor Yahaya Bello, a charge the state says she knew would damage Akpabio’s reputation. Similar to the first count, the second one centres on Bello’s claimed slander. In the third count, she is charged with knowing that Akpabio’s reputation would suffer if she connected him to Miss Iniubong Umoren’s death.
Akpoti-Uduaghan’s followers and legal team have reacted negatively to the charges, accusing the state of being biassed. On behalf of the legal team, one of her solicitors, Uju Nwoduwu, said the Senator had previously filed 12 petitions on a variety of topics, including defamation, threats to life, cyberstalking, and an alleged assassination plot. While Bello and Akpabio’s counter-allegations were promptly handled, resulting in the current criminal charges, Nwoduwu voiced worry that none of these petitions had been addressed.
In addition to stating that the selective response in this case raised major issues about fairness and prejudice in the justice system, the legal team contended that law enforcement and prosecution authorities were expected to operate impartially and preserve the rule of law.
But according to The Nation, the DPPF decided to move on with the case in order to provide an impartial court a chance to consider the accusations, particularly since Akpoti-Uduaghan had previously expressed worries about prejudice on the part of the government and security services. The criminal charge was allegedly based on an earlier probe, according to a Federal Ministry of Justice official, who also pointed out that the Senator had not responded to multiple requests to give her side of the story throughout the investigation. She was asked to respond while the relevant security authorities looked into the petitions that resulted in the charge, the FMJ official stated.
She never appeared. Rather, her solicitors asserted that she travelled overseas. She refused to come back or provide her response until the investigation was over. “The DPPF then decided that, since a criminal case has been established, it was better to have the case decided by the court, where she would have the opportunity to raise her defence, since she failed to honour invitations extended to her during the investigation,” he continued. He said that, in his opinion, Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan’s involvement in the inquiry would have provided her the opportunity to not only tell her version of events but also draw attention to the petitions that she now says the authorities disregarded.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>