Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan’s seat in the Senate chambers had been changed on the day in question. The Deputy Whip of the body clarified that it was a usual occurrence for members to be moved around, as approved by the Senate President. But the lady felt unfairly targeted and protested, leading to a shouting match during which she alleged that her refusal to reciprocate Akpabio’s sexual advances was responsible for various measures meant to frustrate her.
“As for the charges against me, I am unconcerned. I am beyond their timid lying morality and so I am beyond caring,” said the redoubtable Nigerian nationalist, Mrs Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, who, along with Margaret Ekpo, Laila Dogonyaro and a few other women you can count on your fingers, have been canonised by Nigerians of all creeds and philosophies as patron saints of freedom and justice, and wielders of the hammer of courage that shatters all glass ceilings.
Mrs Ransome-Kuti is remembered today and always because many women in search of a political compass to navigate their trajectory freely throw her name into the argument at every opportunity. Nothing inspires like a story plucked from your own backyard — that of a truly African amazon.
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I don’t know how much of Mrs Ransome-Kuti that Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, who was recently suspended for six months by the Nigerian Senate, has read. But she surely must have heard her story. There is no attempt here to draw a parallel between the political careers of both women separated by several generations. However, it is useful to remind ourselves — especially in this month that features the International Women’s Day, with the theme “For All Women and Girls: Rights, Equality, and Empowerment”, that women activism has a long history in Nigeria.
The woman fondly called the Lioness of Lisabi had one prime question she always asked her country: “How beautiful would it be if our women could have the same opportunity as men.”
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Four Out of 109
Senator Natasha of Kogi Central Senatorial District and three other colleagues represent their gender in the 109-member Nigerian Senate, which otherwise would have been an all male affair. Her suspension last week after a spat with the Senate President brought the issue of misogyny, sexual harassment and the rule of law to the fore all over again. The Nigerian commentariat on social media is never short of palavers to resolve.
Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan’s seat in the Senate chambers had been changed on the day in question. The Deputy Whip of the body clarified that it was a usual occurrence for members to be moved around, as approved by the Senate President. But the lady felt unfairly targeted and protested, leading to a shouting match during which she alleged that her refusal to reciprocate Akpabio’s sexual advances was responsible for various measures meant to frustrate her.
Her loud protestations reminded one of Indira Gandhi’s famous words: “Women sometimes go too far, it’s true. But it’s only when you go too far that others listen.”
She presented a written complaint on the alleged sexual harassment by the Senate President, which was later declared “dead on arrival” by the Senate Committee on Ethics Privileges and Public Petitions on account of a technicality (according to the rules, a senator is not supposed to sign her own petition). But the committee treated the disciplinary complaint against the senator with dispatch, sentencing her to six months suspension, despite the fact that there was a court injunction against the hearing and the defendant was not present at the hearing.
Punishment
For her outburst over the seating arrangement, Senator Natasha was clamped with six sanctions:
- The Senate panel recommends the suspension of Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from all legislative activities effective 6 March.
- Her office should be locked, and she must hand over all Senate properties in her possession to the clerk of the National Assembly for the duration of the suspension.
- Neither the senator nor her staff should be seen within the premises of the National Assembly during the suspension period.
- Her salaries, allowances, and those of her legislative aides should be suspended, along with the withdrawal of all security details for the duration of the suspension.
- She should be barred from representing herself locally or internationally as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the suspension.
- The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions recommended a six-month suspension for the lawmaker representing Kogi central.
The comments made by several male colleagues in defence of the Senate President betrayed a misogynistic streak of a similar level of virulence as that which obtained under the leadership of Senator Saraki, during which Senator Dino Melaye made many scandalous sexist pronouncements against Senator Remi Tinubu, who is now Nigeria’s First Lady.
Sexism
When cowardly men are confronted with the risk of losing an argument to a woman, their usual resort is to sexist prejudices and innuendoes. And there was no shortage of such primitive pronouncements. And you wonder, what is to be learnt from a grown man who reduces a colleague’s complaint of sexual harassment to a harangue about the number of the complainant’s former spouses and children?
If, by some magic, the jury were to be open on the number of trysts that many male public officials arrange both officially and unofficially, we would, as they say, burst the loudspeakers!
Judging from the commentaries of those who have had a taste of the senatorial pie, there is a code of silence operating in the National Assembly, which tends to oil the engine of opaque and scandalous dealings in the legislature. If not for the courageous disclosure of the salaries and allowances of senators by former Senator Shehu Sani while he was in the upper chamber, Nigerians would not have had the faintest idea of what many have since described as the humongous salaries of the legislators.
Sani recently revealed that some benevolent ‘gods’ had thrown a protective shield over him, otherwise he would have been similarly suspended by his colleagues for betraying the Nigerian version of Omertà. One gets the impression that it’s a cult out there. Intellectual argumentations may be tolerated for the cameras but outside that, orders are orders! It is true that Mrs Ransome-Kuti counselled that, “To be a good politician you must be wise like a snake, calm like a dove and kind like an angel. But it seems we are in beastlier times where soldier-ANTS come out of the woodwork to devour the complainANT!
Commentariat
Whether you like social media or not, it is still a fairly good barometer for measuring the court of public opinion. Make what you will of this (edited) post written by Comr. Babangida Sa’idu Nuhu, copied from ace broadcaster, Kadaria Ahmed’s Facebook page:
“What happened to Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan today was a collective abuse of power. Her suspension is not just about her, it’s about the message being sent to every woman in Nigeria who dreams of leadership. It is about the dangerous precedent that allows political witch-hunting to masquerade as legislative discipline. And most importantly, it is about a nation that continues to fail its people by allowing impunity to reign unchecked.
“Nigerian women and all real men of goodwill should draw profound inspiration from her stoicism. She sat dignified to the end, in a room filled with men who collectively bullied her for daring to speak up for herself… Senator Natasha, you are indeed a brave woman. You’ll never be alone.”
If you have read or watched Wole Soyinka’s stage play, The Lion and the Jewel and then ruminate over what’s going on in real life, you can’t help but give it to the old lion, Baroka. Compared to some real life predators, he is a class act!
Wole Olaoye is a Public Relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on [email protected], Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021
