Fresh Crisis As Sen. Natasha Accuses Akpabio Of Ordering Seizure Of Her Passport

There was mild drama at a Nigerian airport on Tuesday morning as Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan raised alarm that her international passport had been seized on the alleged orders of Senate President Godswill Akpabio.

In a video shared on her official Facebook page, the Kogi Central lawmaker said immigration officers stopped her from travelling, claiming 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.

According to Senator Natasha, this is not the first time she has faced such an incident. 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.

The senator insisted that she has committed no offence and that there is no court order authorising the seizure of her travel documents.

“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!

Natasha further alleged that President Bola Tinubu had previously instructed that all politically motivated cases against her be terminated, but claimed Akpabio had ignored the President’s directive.

“There was no order, yes, I know I have two federal government cases against me, but the President ordered that they be terminated because he admitted they were politically witch-hunting cases,” she said.

After several minutes of confrontation, Senator Natasha revealed that her passport was eventually released to her, showing it to the camera as evidence.

As of the time of filing this report, neither Senate President Godswill Akpabio nor the Nigeria Immigration Service has issued an official statement in response to the allegations.