The Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has accused the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio of ordering the seizure of her travelling passport at the airport.
In a video shared on her official Facebook page, Natasha said immigration officers stopped her from travelling, saying they had instructions from above to withhold her passport.
“Hello fellow Nigerians, good morning. Having completed my second year in office, I wanted to take a week off. I am at the airport and my passport has been withheld again,” she said in the clip.
Natasha further explained that this is not the first time such incident will happen. She alleged that on a previous occasion, security officers told her that the directive came from the Senate President himself.
“The last time this happened, the officer in charge told us that the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said each time I travel out of the country, I smear the image of Nigeria by granting interviews to international media,” she claimed.
In the video, she said: “You have no right to withhold my passport. You have no right to deny me exit and entrance into my country. This must stop! I think I have to sue you for embarrassing me,” she said in the video. “I have been standing here for the past 20 minutes. The last time, I had to call someone influential to make you release my passport. Is Godswill Akpabio so important that he can overrule national boundaries?”
“Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President has instructed the Comptroller-General of Customs to deny me exit, to withhold my passport,” she angrily said!
On the question of why the passport was seized, she said there was no ordered barring her from travelling. Referring to all the court cases against her by the government, she disclosed that President Bola Tinubu has ordered the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to withdraw all court cases filed against her.
Since the President had already intervened in her case, she said there should be no reason for her passport to be seized by Immigration officials.
“There was no order. Yes, I know I have two Federal Government cases against me, of which the President of Nigeria instructed the Attorney-General of the Federation to cancel, to withdraw the cases.”
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu actually spoke to Godswill Akpabio to terminate all the cases against me. Because he admitted, he agreed that they were politically witch-hunting me with cases.
Senator Natasha later revealed that her passport was eventually released to her.
