Senator Natasha accuses Immigration officials of blocking her from travelling
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, representing Kogi Central, has alleged that immigration officials at the airport prevented her from travelling abroad. The lawmaker raised the alarm during a live broadcast on her Facebook page on Tuesday morning, accusing officials of withholding her passport without legal justification.
“Have I committed any offence? Why are you withholding my passport?” she said to the officials during the livestream. The Kogi senator explained that the incident occurred shortly after marking her second year in office. “Having completed my second-year celebration, I decided to take a week off. I’m at the airport, and my passport has been withheld again.”
Akpoti-Uduaghan recalled a similar incident in which her passport was allegedly seized on the instruction of Senate President Godswill Akpabio. “The last time this happened, the officer said Senator Akpabio instructed them to prevent me from travelling. He said each time I travel, I smear the country’s image through international interviews. “This is wrong. There was no order. Yes, I know I have two federal government cases against me, of which the president of Nigeria instructed the AGF to cancel the cases, to withdraw the cases.
“This president actually spoke with Godswill Akpabio to terminate all the cases against me because he admitted, he agreed that they were politically witch-hunting cases. So there is no reason why my passport should be withheld at the international airport. There is no reason why,” she said.
