Kogi Central senator, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss an appeal filed by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, regarding her legal challenge of her six-month suspension by the Senate in March last year.
Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan, made the request in a counter-affidavit in opposition to Mr Akpabio’s appeal, Vanguard reported. Her senior legislative aide swore the counter-affidavit in response to Mr Akpabio’s motion on notice dated 21 January.
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Although Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan resumed from the six-month suspension in September last year, the legal action regarding the Senate’s decision still lingers in court.
Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan challenged her suspension at the Federal High Court in Abuja, which ended up giving a controversial, indefinite judgement. The decision prompted her and Mr Akpabio to challenge various aspects of it at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
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During a hearing at the Court of Appeal in November 2025, the panel of justices rejected Mr Akpabio’s brief for being too long, exceeding the number of pages prescribed in the court’s rules.
The court also rejected his request to file a revised brief to comply with the allowed length.
Mr Akpabio filed an appeal at the Supreme Court to contest the Court of Appeal’s decision, alleging lack of fairness.
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But Ms Akpoti-Uduaghan’s legal team has now countered the appeal, arguing that Mr Akpabio’s case brought to the Supreme Court disclosed no prima facie good cause and amounted to an abuse of court process. They told the Supreme Court that the Court of Appeal had concluded hearing the substantive appeal on 28 November 2025 and had reserved judgement.
The respondents said approaching the Supreme Court at this stage was an attempt to interfere with an appellate process that had reached an advanced stage and was awaiting final determination.
The counter-affidavit maintained that Mr Akpabio had ample opportunity to present his case before the Court of Appeal and that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan’s brief was properly filed, complied with court rules, and was never formally challenged.
It noted that while the legal teams representing Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan, the Clerk of the National Assembly, and another respondent complied with the page limit, Mr Akpabio’s brief exceeded the allowed length and he failed to correct it in time. It noted that the Court of Appeal therefore declined to admit the over-length brief and heard the appeal based on properly filed processes.
It also stated that the grounds of appeal raised mixed questions of law and facts, and that prior leave of court was required but not obtained, making the appeal incompetent from the outset.
The counter-affidavit also addressed complaints on adjournment and fair hearing, insisting that the Court of Appeal exercised its discretion properly and that Mr Akpabio was not denied fair hearing at any stage.
It described the appeal as an attempt to stall the delivery of judgement by the Court of Appeal and asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the application in its entirety.
Background
The legal feud arose from Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension after a dispute between her and Mr Akpabio during a Senate proceeding on 20 February 2025 over the seat alloted to her in the Senate’s chamber.
On 6 March 2025, the Senate adopted a report by its Ethics Committee and suspended her for six months, citing misconduct and violation of Standing Orders.
The suspension barred her from her duties, sealed her office, and withheld her salaries and allowances. She could return earlier if she tendered a written apology.
She rejected the suspension and challenged it in court, arguing it was punitive, unconstitutional, and linked to her earlier sexual harassment petition against Mr Akpabio, which he denied.
About four months later, the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled the suspension excessive and ordered her recall, but stopped short of ordering her reinstatement. The judge, Binta Nyako, also fined her N5 million for contempt over a social media post she made while the suit was pending and ordered her to tender a public apology.
Due to the controversial nature of the Federal High Court’s decision, both Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan and Mr Akpabio filed separate appeals to challenge various aspects of the judgment.
Meanwhile, the Senate did not reinstate her immediately, arguing that the court had not issued such an order and that the matter was still pending in court.
When the six-month suspension ended on 4 September, Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan notified the National Assembly of her intent to resume, but the management refused and cited the ongoing court process. The standoff lasted until 23 September, when Senate officials unsealed her office, which had remained closed since March 2025.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja heard the appeals on 28 November 2025, when it rejected Mr Akpabio’s brief for being too long, but has yet to deliver its judgment on the appeals. The date of the judgment is to be communicated to the parties.
Following the appeal court’s decision, Mr Akpabio filed an appeal at the Supreme Court on 18 December. He listed the Clerk of the National Assembly, the Nigerian Senate, and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Neda Imasuem listing as respondents.
The Senate President argued that by the time the appeal was heard, Ms Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension had expired. “She was reinstated to the Senate on 6 September and has been performing her duties with all the associated rights and privileges,” his filing read.
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He also challenged Ms Akpoti-Uduaghan’s filings, arguing that her brief did not comply with “formatting rules requiring a larger font size and wider line spacing,” which allowed her to remain within the page limit without court approval.
He also questioned the competence of her notice of appeal, which he said required him to address the objection within his brief, making a longer submission unavoidable.
Mr Akpabio argued that the appellate court’s decision denied him a fair hearing under the Nigerian Constitution and added that the court was wrong to insist on strict compliance with the page limit, given the complexity and volume of issues in the appeal.
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