A Nigerian Senator, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan is under fire for raising false alarm that her passport was seized on the alleged orders of Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
In a video shared on her official Facebook page, the Kogi Central lawmaker claimed that she was briefly stopped from travelling abroad on Tuesday after immigration officials seized her passport at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
However, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) swiftly denied claims that its officers seized the passport of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan at the airport Tuesday, November 4.
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In an interview with Channels TV, the spokesperson of the service, Akinsola Akinlabi, explained that the incident was part of routine immigration procedures.
“NIS didn’t seize the distinguished senator’s passport, but rather she went through routine immigration checks and was allowed to travel,” the service’s spokesperson said.
Speaking further, Akinlabi clarified that officers were only performing their statutory duties.
“The NIS officers needed to conduct their checks. They may take your passport to do so, but that doesn’t mean it was seized as alleged. She has since been allowed to travel. Perhaps while waiting for the checks to be completed, she assumed she was being stopped from travelling” he said.
The immigration spokesperson noted that the Kogi senator made her video during the routine process but did not post an update after being cleared to fly.
“She has travelled since then. The video was made while she was going through the checks, not after. The passport was never seized” Akinlabi said.
When asked if Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan resisted handing over her passport for inspection, Akinlabi said he could not confirm that.
‘’I don’t know about that but the officers conducting the checks are authorised to collect passports for verification and must return them once done, which they did.” he said.
How the Senator Accused Akpabio over the saga
Earlier, Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan had raised alarm that her passport was seized on the alleged orders of Senate President Akpabio.
“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 her, 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.
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