PANDEF: ACF Supporting Natasha over Alleged Sexual Harassment to Sack Akpabio

•Such things can’t take place in Senate, says Ita-Giwa

Emmanuel Addeh and Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), yesterday, alleged that Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) was supporting the Kogi Central senator, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, against the senate president, Godswill Akpabio, because it wanted the senators to impeach Akpabio.

Relatedly, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa said it was impossible in the senate to sexually harass anybody.

PANDEF, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Christopher Ominimini, lamented that ACF allowed itself to be used as a political machinery to bring Akpabio down.

Akpoti-Uduaghan had on a live television programme with Arise News Channel, last Friday, accused Akpabio of sexual harassment.

But PANDEF said ACF’s political calculation targeted against the senate president in the form of sexual harassment allegation was nothing but a political gimmick to fight back against the South-south geopolitical zone.

The statement read, “It is very sad that the supposed revered Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has turned itself into a political hired machine for politicians.

“The press release by the publicity secretary of the ACF is nothing but a political war against the entire people of southern Nigeria aiming to incite the northern Nigeria against the administration of President Bola Amed Tinubu in order to restore power back to northern Nigeria in 2027.”

PANDEF further alleged that ACF’s statement showed very clearly that the 2027 presidential second term of Tinubu was their real target.

On her part, Ita-Giwa, who defended her position, argued that once women became senators they could not be sexually harassed.

Speaking on Arise Television, Ita-Giwa, a former presidential aide, stated that it was a sign of weakness for female senators to complain about sexual harassment.

She insisted that although she wasn’t accusing Akpoti-Uduaghan of lying, the senate was too elevated for issues of sexual harassment to be discussed.

Ita-Giwa said, “By the time you contest elections and get to the senate, you have passed that stage of your life of being sexually harassed. You go there to serve, and you are all equal in that place. And again, it shows weakness; you don’t allow it. It cannot happen in the senate.

“I am not saying the lady is lying, but when you get to the senate, you’re there as a person. You’re not there as a woman. At that stage in politics, if you come out and say someone is sexually harassing you, it is a weakness.”