{"id":355,"date":"2025-07-04T18:57:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T18:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=355"},"modified":"2025-07-04T19:02:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T19:02:36","slug":"court-orders-senate-to-recall-suspended-natasha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=355","title":{"rendered":"Court orders Senate to recall suspended Natasha"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday ruled that the Nigerian Senate acted beyond its powers by suspending Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan for six months, ordering her immediate recall to the Red Chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Justice Binta Nyako, who delivered the judgment, described the duration of the suspension as \u201cexcessive\u201d and without a clear legal foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ayra Starr - Goodbye (Warm Up) ft. Asake (Official Music Video)\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/22PZkwJpu9k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the court, both Chapter 8 of the Senate Standing Orders and Section 14 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act, which the upper chamber relied upon, do not stipulate a maximum suspension period. As such, they were deemed overreaching in this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The judge pointed out that since the National Assembly is only required to sit for 181 days in a legislative year, suspending a lawmaker for roughly that same length of time effectively silences the voice of an entire constituency\u2014a move she described as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhile the Senate has the authority to discipline its members, such sanctions must not go so far as to deny constituents their right to representation,\u201d Nyako ruled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the court sided with Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, on a separate issue, stating that his refusal to allow Akpoti-Uduaghan to speak during a plenary\u2014on the grounds that she was not seated in her designated chair\u2014did not amount to a violation of her rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nyako also dismissed Akpabio\u2019s argument that the judiciary had no business interfering in what he called an \u201cinternal affair\u201d of the legislature, stating that fundamental rights and representation are matters squarely within the court\u2019s purview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a twist, the court imposed a monetary penalty on Akpoti-Uduaghan for breaching a prior court directive that barred both parties from making public statements about the ongoing legal matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fine runs into millions of naira. <a href=\"https:\/\/punchng.com\/breaking-court-orders-senate-to-recall-suspended-natasha\/?dicbo=v2-q9GZ1qs\">(Punch)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Court<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[496,475,499,498,497,495],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-abuja","tag-federal-high-court","tag-godswill-akpabio","tag-justice-binta-nyako","tag-natasha-akpoti-uduaghan","tag-senate"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - 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