The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has chastised the Senate’s decisions to suspend Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan but gloss over the sexual assault allegation she leveled at Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
Recall that the Senate suspended Natasha for six months among other punishments meted out to her and failed to subject Akpabio to scrutiny for the alleged crime.
Rather, the Senators lined up behind the former governor, clearing him of the charge without recourse to investigation.
The decisions set off mixed reactions among the public, with the PDP now expressing its antipathy to it.
To the opposition party via a statement its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba released, said the decisions to suspend the accuser and failure to probe the accused are deficient in both justice and compassion.
“The excessively harsh six months suspension on Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan translates to denying the people of Kogi Central Senatorial Zone their Constitutional right of being represented in the Senate.
“It is scandalous, and amounts to gross abuse of office and violation of the fundamentals of justice and fair hearing for Senator Akpabio to sit as a judge in a matter in which he is the accused; a situation which validates public apprehension of a desperation by the embattled Senate President to suppress open legislative probe into the allegation of sexual harassment leveled against him,” the statement read.
The party alleged that Akpabio is on a familiar terrain and should have recused himself from the case if he was not guilty as charged.
“The current episode in the Senate reminds Nigerians of the allegation of sexual harassment leveled against Akpabio by the former acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr Joi Nunieh.
“If Akpabio has nothing to hide, what Nigerians expected of him was to clear his name by stepping aside in line with established parliamentary practice, allow and submit to an open and unbiased investigation into the allegation of sexual harassment by Akpoti-Uduaghan,” Ologunagba wrote.
