The lawmaker representing Kogi Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan has filed a lawsuit against the Senate President, Godwill Akpabio for alleged defamation.
This came days after Akpoti-Uduaghan was involved in a heated dispute with Akpabio following the reassignment of her seat within the senate chambers.
The Kogi lawmaker, in the suit filed before the Federal Capital Territory High Court on Tuesday, listed the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the Senior Legislative Aide to the Senate President, Mfon Patrick, as the second and third defendants.
In the suit, with number CV/737/25, Akpoti-Uduaghan, through her lawyer, Victor Giwa, alleged that defamatory statements were made by the Senate President and published by his aide on Facebook.
He stated that the post, titled “Is the Local Content Committee of the Senate Natasha’s Birthright?” included a statement suggesting that Akpoti-Uduaghan believed being a lawmaker was only about “pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the chambers.”
The lawmaker’s legal representative, argued that the statement was defamatory, provocative, and disparaging, lowering his client’s dignity in the eyes of her colleagues and the public, while urging the court to restrain the defendants and their associates from making further defamatory statements against her on any platform.
As stated in the petition, Akpoti-Uduaghan asked the court to order the defendants to pay her N100 billion in general damages and N300 million as litigation costs.
According to the lawsuit, “A DECLARATION that the words, ‘It is bottled anger by the Kogi lawmaker, who knows nothing about legislative rules. She thinks being a lawmaker is all about pancaking her face and wearing transparent outfits to the chambers,’ used and written by the third defendant at the prompting of the first and second defendants, is defamatory and intended to cause public opprobrium and disaffection toward the claimant.”
“AN ORDER OF PERPETUAL INJUNCTION restraining the defendants, whether acting by themselves or through their agents, privies, assigns, or associates, from further publishing or causing to be published the said defamatory words or any similar publications about the claimant on social media or in any other manner capable of defaming her”
“An order for the payment of the sum of N100,000,000,000 as general damages. An order for the payment of the sum of N300,000,000 as the cost of action”.
