The Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has filed an N100 billion defamation suit against Godswill Akpabio, the Senate president.
The suit, filed before the Federal Capital Territory High Court on Tuesday, sought an order compelling the Senate President to apologize to her and retract alleged defamatory comments made against her.
The said comment was made by Akpabio’s senior legislative aide, Mfon Patrick on his Facebook page.
Following the drama during plenary on February 20th, Mr Mfon took to his Facebook page to post “ Is local content committee of the senate Natasha’s birthright?” where he stated that the claimant thought being a lawmaker is all about pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the Chambers“
Natasha prayed the court to compel both Akpabio and his aide to withdraw the defamatory comments and apologize to her using a national newspaper.
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Reliefs Sought
The Senator who sued Akpabio in both his capacity as Senator and as Senate President sought the following reliefs;
“A DECLARATION that the words caused to be published by the 1st and 2nd Defendants and published by the 3rd Defendant acting as the legislative aide to the 1st Defendant on his Facebook page with the heading – “IS LOCAL CONTENT COMMITTEE OF THE SENATE NATASHA BIRTHRIGHT”, where the 3rd Defendant at the prompting of the 1st and 2nd Defendants continued further thus: “it is a bottled anger by the Kogi Lawmaker, who knows nothing about legislative rules. She thinks being a lawmaker is all about pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the Chambers” is defamatory, provocative, disparaging, lowering in dignity the estimation of the Claimant in the eyes of her colleagues and right-thinking members of the public,”
“AN ORDER of this honourable Court compelling the Defendants to withdraw the said defamatory words and publication made against the Claimant immediately and to apologize to the Claimant in writing and publish the same in one national daily newspaper widely circulated within the jurisdiction of this Court.
“AN ORDER OF PERPETUAL INJUNCTION restraining the Defendants whether acting by themselves, or through their agents, privies, assigns or associates from further publishing or caused to be published the said defamatory words herein stated or any other similar publications about the Claimant on the social media platform or in any other manner, in which is capable of defaming the Claimant.
“An Order for payment of the sum of N100, 000,000,000 (ONE HUNDRED BILLION NAIRA as general damages.
“An Order for payment of the sum of N300, 000,000.00 (Three Hundred Million Naira) only as cost of action.”
What you should know
- On February 20, the Kogi senator engaged in a heated argument with Akpabio over seat allocation in the upper chamber.
- The disagreement started when she resisted relocating after her seat was reassigned at the beginning of the session.
- The upper chamber referred the Kogi senator to the committee on ethics, privileges, and public petitions for disciplinary review on Tuesday.
