The Senate will not entertain the allegations made by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan against Senate President Godswill Akpabio unless a formal petition is submitted, Senate spokesperson Yemi Adaramodu has stated.
The controversy began after a disagreement over seat reassignment in the Senate, which led Senator Natasha to accuse Akpabio of sexual harassment. She alleged that the Senate President had deliberately obstructed her attempts to present a motion on Ajaokuta Steel Company because she rejected his advances.
However, Adaramodu dismissed the idea that the Senate would discuss the matter based on media reports or public discourse. “In the Senate, we don’t conduct our affairs on matters picked on Facebook or in the media and rush to the chamber and start conducting our affairs on that,” he said during an interview on Arise TV’s The Morning Show on March 3, 2025.
He explained that without an explicit complaint from a senator, the issue would not be considered. “There must be an explicit complaint from any senator, for that matter, that there’s any misdemeanour that a (fellow) senator has committed against him or her. Then, the senator will raise it, we will discuss it, and then the whole Senate will decide that this is necessary and worth it,” Adaramodu said.
Emphasizing the Senate’s procedure, he added, “We do not conduct our legislative business on the pages of newspapers. It is only what is before us that we discuss.”
