The Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has alleged that Senate President Godswill Akpabio ordered Nigerian immigration officers to seize her international passport at the airport, preventing her from travelling abroad.
In a video obtained by SaharaReporters on Tuesday, the lawmaker was seen questioning immigration officials at the airport over the alleged confiscation of her passport.
She described the action as an unlawful restriction of her movement and a gross violation of her fundamental rights.
“Hello, fellow Nigerians. I’m Senator Natasha. Having completed my second year in office, I decided to take a week off. I’m at the airport here, and my passport has been withheld again,” she said in the video.
“This same thing happened before when I was stopped from travelling even though I had committed no offence, and there was no court order restricting me. The officer in charge told me that the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, instructed them to withhold my passport and prevent me from travelling because he claimed that each time I go abroad, I ‘spoil the image of the country’ by granting interviews to international media,” she added.
Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan expressed frustration over what she described as repeated harassment and intimidation, urging authorities to intervene and end the “embarrassment.”
As of the time of filing this report, neither the Nigerian Immigration Service nor the office of the Senate President had issued an official response to the allegations.
On May 19, 2025, SaharaReporters reported that Senator Natasha has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, accusing Senate President Godswill Akpabio of masterminding a coordinated smear campaign aimed at discrediting her and silencing her sexual harassment allegations.
In the petition submitted through her legal team led by Dr. Ehiogie West-Idahosa, SAN, Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan alleged that her safety, reputation, and political career are under attack in what she describes as a “malicious campaign of criminal defamation, cyber-stalking, conspiracy, and attempted assassination” engineered by the Senate President.
The petition, supported by what her lawyers described as “incontrovertible evidence from public broadcasts, witness testimonies, media reports, and expert analyses,” claims the retaliatory campaign began shortly after the senator publicly accused Akpabio of sexual harassment on national television on February 28, 2025.
“In the weeks following our client’s suspension from the Senate, a previously unknown individual styling herself as ‘Professor Mgbeke’ began publishing sympathetic commentaries on Facebook. However, what followed shocked our client,” the petition reads.
“Immediately after our client declined any form of transactional engagement, ‘Prof. Mgbeke’ began what evolved into a deliberate, malicious and coordinated campaign of character assassination.”
According to the petition, the woman behind the online persona “Prof. Mgbeke” was later identified as Dr. Sandra Chidinma Duru, a Nigerian resident in Texas. Senator Natasha claimed she only discovered Duru’s true identity after a live broadcast on May 1, 2025, and subsequent journalistic investigations.
“She had never heard the name Sandra Duru until law enforcement officers requested she identify her. The deception, the manipulation of public sentiment, and the ultimate betrayal formed the foundation of a well-orchestrated campaign designed to destroy our client’s public image,” the petition notes.
The petition directly links Senator Akpabio to Dr. Duru’s alleged smear campaign, citing a revealing May 1 broadcast in which Duru inadvertently exposed her phone’s call log. The log allegedly contained saved contacts such as “My Daddy Directline,” “IGP Kayode,” “Senator Akpabio” (with two different numbers), and “Oby Ndukwe,” among others.
