It is no secret that some over ambitious forces within and outside the National Assembly saw the Senator Natasha Akpoti saga as yet another opportunity to settle scores, even if imaginary with the Senator Godswill Akpabio-led Senate leadership and they wasted little time in exploiting the face-off for shallow, self-serving and self-aggrandizing ends.
From the onset, a minor issue that could have been amicably resolved behind closed doors was elevated to the highest level of social and political discourse thus overshadowing more weighter matters of national importance.
While Senator Natasha Akpoti was playing the gender card to rally support for her cause, the inordinately ambitious cabal, intent on undermining and even subverting the Senate leadership reportedly funded ‘world’ press conferences by faceless civil society, human and gender rights groups protesting the alleged ‘maltreatment and harassment’ of Senator Natasha, some even calling for the resignation of the Senate President and his entire leadership team.
Numerous rent-a-crowd demonstrations surfaced in Abuja and its environs as the cabal pressed home their plans to topple the Senate leadership and install a more compliant one, amenable to their strategic interests and objectives.
Thus, all manner of invectives, calculated blackmail and slanderous libel were directed at the person and office of the Senate President in order to tarnish his hardworn reputation and image in the estimation of right-thinking members of the public.
The siren song adopted by the hirelings of the cabal was for Senator Akpabio to step aside for an ‘impartial’ probe to be conducted into the saga which would then pave way for the election of a new leadership in tune with the traducer’s aspirations and desires.
However, as the saying goes, man proposes, but God disposes and the vast majority of the Senate membership still had undiluted trust and confidence in the Akpabio-led team and thus stoutly resisted the shenanigans of the would be ‘coupists’.
To cut a long story short, the law was allowed to take its course and after due deliberation, Senator Natasha was handed a 6 months suspension for glaring misconduct and gross insubordination to constituted authority, a development that sent elements of the reactionary cabal scampering for cover.
With their leadership change delusions in tatters, the sundry traducers of the Senate leadership should better be advised to retrace their unsavory steps and unholy strategems and join hands with nationalist, progressive forces to move the Senate and entire National Assembly forward in the crucial scheme of things.
Failing which they will surely face a similar fate that befell the beleaguered Senator Natasha Akpoti.
The shadowy cabal better join the progressive train or be left high and dry. The choice is theirs to make as a word is enough for the wise.
OCHEKPA OROKAM, A POLITICAL ACTIVIST WROTE IN FROM LOKOJA, KOGI STATE.
