By J.S. Okutepa, SAN
There have been ranging controversies over what appeared to be altercations between the Senate President Distinguished Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio and Distinguished Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan over the change of her seat. A learned senior advocate of Nigeria, Dr. Monday Onyekachi Ubani SAN seems to suggest that Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan should have taken the decision of the Senate President over the change of her seat and shouldn’t have protested the way she did.
He argued that the president of the Senate has the right to change the seat of any Senator and that the Distinguished Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan was bound by the decision and the rules of the Senate that empowered the Senate President to change the seat.
These arguments with profound respect did not take into account the rights of Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan to be informed of the reasons for the change of her seat. Why was the seat of Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan changed? Even if the Senate has the right to change seats of Senators, are the Senators not entitled to be told and reasons for the change given? Was Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan not entitled to be told why her seat was changed? Sometimes, we dignify an otherwise illegitimate and arrogant interference with rights under the pretences of enforcing rules.
The Rules of the Senate and the constitutional rights to fair hearing of Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan, which is superior? There is no doubt that Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan had acquired a right to the seat originally allocated to her. To alter that right, she was entitled to be informed, and she has the right to protest if she was not informed or was shabbily treated as it appears from her protestations under the same Senate Rules.
With profound respect to Dr. Monday Onyekachi Ubani SAN, his arguments that the senate president has the right to change the seat overlooked a very serious and more important fundamental right of Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan to be told of the reasons for the change of her seat and her equal right to protests the unjust change if she felt so. To shout her down and threaten her with suspension did not only infringe on her constitutional rights to be heard, it was unfair and it can not be part of the rules of the Senate to treat her as a senatorial effigy to be moved anyhow.
In any case, and in most cases, Nigerian rulers tend to enforce self-serving rules instead of enforcing the mandatory constitutional provisions. To direct the sergeant at arm to take distinguished Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan out of the senate because of her protestations on the seat change arrangements is with profound respect despotic and authoritarian display of self-help in breach of the constitutional rights to fair hearing of Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan.
Why change the seat of Senator Natasha? That is a question to be asked. Why did the senate fail to accord Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan the dignity of prior information of the change? In any case, what is so sacrosanct about the rules of the Senate that can override the constitutional rights of fair hearing? Can the Senate President be a judge in his own cause? What are the duties of the Ethics and Privileges Committee of the Senate?
Is the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria even obeying the Nigerian constitution? There are senators who came to the National Assembly on the platforms of political parties that sponsored their selections or elections. Today, those senators have cross-carpeted to other political parties even though there are no divisions in the political parties upon which they rode to the Senate in breach of the Nigerian constitution.
Has the Senate President declared their seats vacant as he is under constitutional duty to do? How many Senate confirmations of executive appointments has the Senate under the president of the Senate undertaken to show the seriousness of the constitutional mandate of confirmations? All one sees are cosmetic rituals of political jests of take a bow and go.
As one of my learned friends put it: “Which useless standing rules are you talking about, how can there be standing rules for people who violated all known sensible standing rules and the law by rigging elections to get themselves into the Senate? People who violate the Constitution every day by defecting from one party to the other without any consequences? So, it is an ordinary sitting arrangement that has now turned to standing rules that must be followed. Mtcheeew!!!”
Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan must be left to sit in her seat to represent the Kogi people. She is under a constitutional mandate to sit for a number of days. Any attempt to harass her or intimidate her in the performance of her constitutional duties will be resisted by Nigerians who see her performances in the senate as superlative.
There are many serious businesses of governance that should engage the legislative attention of the Senate under the Senate President. The duties to make law for peace order and good governance do not include the duty to quarrel with and harass any senators or threaten suspension of a Senator for any flimsy reasons of sitting arrangements
Nigerians are not dull as some in power think of us. Nigerians know those who violated the Nigerian constitution to be in positions of responsibility in this country. The silence or patience of Nigerians should not be taken for granted. Enough of all these nonsensical demonstrations of political pettiness
