KEY POINTS

• According to Femi Falana the suspension driveway constructed by Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan against the senator exhibits disastrous oversight.
• He supports his case by presenting multiple court decisions that made legislative suspensions illegitimate acts.
• The request for immediate action by Falana emphasizes that suspending lawmakers would lead to their silence.

Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and human rights attorney Femi Falana strongly criticized the legislative decision to suspend Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan because he considers it to be totally reckless.

According to him the Nigerian Senate took an action that directly defied court judgments which continuously state legislative suspensions are unconstitutional.

Falana expressed his condemnation to the Senate for disregarding a Federal High Court order which prevented the Senate Ethics Committee from proceeding against Akpoti-Uduaghan in his Sunday statement.

The decision required immediate rollback by his insistence while he warned about dangerous consequences from Senate officials silencing colleagues at will.

Falana condemns Natasha’s suspension, says violation of court rulings

Falana explained that the Nigerian court system continuously follows the practice of invalidating unfair legislative dismissal procedures. Winning the case were various previous instances such as:

The Federal High Court declared the legislative suspensions illegal so it mandated the immediate payment of outstanding wages to those affected according to the Dino Melaye & 10 Others (2010) ruling.
The Bauchi State House of Assembly suspended Rifkatu Danna but both the State High Court and Court of Appeal later annulled this decision in 2012 and again in 2017.
The Federal High Court returned Abdulmumin Jibrin to his legislative duties after he exposed budget padding in 2018.
The judge declared Ndume’s suspension to be illegal as well as unconstitutional during 2017.
Ovie Omo-Agege (2020) received court support which declared his suspension unlawful.
The suspension of Abdul Ningi for his financial padding accusations led to his return based on judicial intervention in March 2024.

Call for an immediate reversal

Law expert Falana argued that Senate violations of legal authority persisted when they moved forward with the suspension in face of the court restraint. The Senate should have waited by rule of law since the Federal High Court prevented the Senate Ethics Committee from processing complaints against the senator, he explained.

The human rights lawyer made a final plea for the legislature to follow precedence in the law while practicing democracy in Nigeria. Universal suspension of members through arbitrary means must cease to eliminate political suppression of parliamentarians.