Natasha’s actions deemed outside Senate rules – Deputy Chief Whip

Abdullateef Fowewe

The Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate, Peter Nwebonyi, has slammed Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan for her behaviour during Thursday’s plenary session, asserting that her actions breached the rules of the Senate.

Nwebonyi stated that what Akpoti-Uduaghan did is outrightly outside the provision of our rules and nothing can remedy it.

The lawmaker spoke during an appearance on Arise News.

He addressed the controversy surrounding Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan’s refusal to move to her newly assigned seat, which led to a heated discussion on parliamentary procedures and gender representation.

Nwebonyi stood by the recent seat reallocation in the Senate, rejecting accusations of marginalising or suppressing women’s voices.

Nwebonyi clarified that Senate rules grant the presiding officer, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the authority to reassign seats following a defection from one political party to another.

He emphasised that the shift in seating arrangements was a necessary measure after some opposition senators joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to maintain parliamentary order.

He said, “We have two sides of the Senate. The majority party sits at the right hand side of the presiding officer while the opposition party sits at the left hand side of the presiding officer and in this case, the Senate President. And you’ll agree with me that a few weeks back, some senators from the opposition defected to the ruling party, the APC, thereby creating value within the seating arrangement in the opposition sitting cycle.

“By our rules, particularly order 6, rule 1, empowers the presiding officer which is the Senate President to reallocate seats to senators where there is defection. This allocation of seats did not only affect Natasha, it affected other senators within the sitting role of the opposition. And Natasha instead of moving to the new seat allocated to her, refused to do that. And by doing so, she breached the rule of the senate. It is a very unfortunate incident because to me, it is unwarranted. It shouldn’t be.

“The seats are all the same. It’s just for us to have normalcy without creating a vacuum under the seating arrangement. That is why the Senate President exercised his powers as enshrined in our rules and regulations as a parliament. That is the parliamentary practice all over the world. I want to join my colleagues to condemn this unwarranted act.”