After being suspended for six months by the Senate, the lawmaker representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has filed a contempt charge against Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
Equally cited as contemnors in the Form 48 she entered before the Federal High Court in Abuja, are the Clerk of the National Assembly and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Code of Conduct, Senator Neda Imasuem.
The embattled Kogi lawmaker maintained that her suspension constituted a willful disobedience to a subsisting order the court issued against the defendants on March 4.
Based on her application, the court, in a notice of disobedience of court order signed by its Registrar pursuant to Section 72 of the Sheriff and Civil Process Act 2004, urged the Defendants/Contemnors to take notice of their wilful disobedience of the order that was issued against them by Justice Obiora Egwuatu.
It warned that disobedience of the subsisting order rendered Akpabio, Senator Imasuem and the Clerk of the National Assembly liable for contempt of court, for which they may be committed to prison.
According to the Form 48, a copy of which Vanguard sighted on Thursday, the defendants/contemnors, “deliberately and contumaciously disregarded” a binding directive of the court and “proceeded with acts in flagrant defiance of the authority of the court.”
It was alleged that an enrolled order of the interim injunction that was issued by the court, was duly served on the defendants on March 5.
Justice Egwuatu had on the strength of an ex-parte application that Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan filed through her team of lawyers led by Mr. Michael Numa, SAN, restrained the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Code of Conduct, from “proceeding with the purported investigation against the Plaintiff/Applicant for alleged misconduct sequel to the events that occurred at the plenary of the 2nd Defendant on the 20th day of February, 2025, pursuant to the referral by the 2nd Defendant on 25th February, 2025 pending the hearing and determination of the Motion on Notice for interlocutory injunction.”
The court further issued an order “directing the 1st -4th Defendants to come and show cause; why an order of interlocutory injunction should not be granted against them restraining them from proceeding with purported investigation against the Plaintiff for alleged misconduct without affecting her privileges as stipulated in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (As Amended), the Senate Standing Order 2023 and the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act.”
As well as an order declaring that any action taken during the pendency of the suit “is null, void and of no effect whatsoever.”
More so, Justice Egwuatu gave Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan the nod to serve the processes on the defendants through substituted means, by either handing them to the Clerk of the National Assembly, or by pasting them on the oremises of the National Assembly or by publishing same in two national dailies.
The Senate President, Akpabio has in response to the suit, challenged the jurisdiction of the court to meddle in the affairs of the Senate.
The court adjourned further proceedings in the case till March 25.
