Senate Resumption: Police teargas Akpoti-Uduaghan’s supporters at National Assembly

The police on Tuesday fired teargas at Kogi Central Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s supporters, who accompanied her to the National Assembly to welcome her back from a six-month Senate suspension.

Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan and her supporters marched from the FCT High Court in Maitama, Abuja, where she appeared earlier in the morning for a criminal defamation case against her, to the National Assembly.

The supporters, who were mostly people from her constituency in Kogi State, included human rights activist Aisha Yesufu.

They departed the court in Maitama at about 12.00 p.m., waving the Nigerian flag and chanting solidarity songs to the beats of drummers who were part of the procession from the court to the National Assembly.

They arrived at the National Assembly gate in the Three Arms Zone of the capital city at 12:45 p.m., after a several kilometres walk from the court in Maitama.

Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan was allowed into the National Assembly premises with a few aides.

Some of the supporters were allowed entry at the first gate of the National Assembly, while others were shut out.

At 12.50 p.m., the police officers fired teargas canisters to disperse the crowd of supporters.

The politician’s supporters and journalists who were there to cover the event took to their heels as the teargas fumes saturated the air.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the management of the National Assembly had unsealed the office of Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan, who was suspended for six months over alleged misconduct and for defying the Senate’s sitting arrangement during a plenary session.

This newspaper reported that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan earlier appeared at the FCT High Court in Maitama for a criminal defamation case, which was later rescheduled to 27 October.

The matter was one of the two criminal cases instituted against her during her six-month suspension.

The other one, which is a cybercrime case pending at the Federal High Court also in Abuja, was rescheduled to 27 September.

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Both cases centred around the public remarks she made during her suspension, accusing Senate President Godswill Akpabio and former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello, her two political adversaries, of plotting to assassinate her.

The prosecution said she made the comment, despite knowing it to be false, to damage the reputation of the two men.