Senator Ireti Kingibe of the Labour Party has said that Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of Kogi Central once told her that Senate President Godswill Akpabio asked her to meet him in a hotel. 

She made this remark while faulting the Kogi lawmaker over her outburst regarding the change of her seating arrangement in the Senate.  

In an interview with Arise TV on Friday, shortly after Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan alleged that the Senate President sexually harassed her before changing her seat in the Senate, Ms Kingibe said she was not aware of the allegation but that it was not an impossibility. 

She added that Ms Akpoti-Uduaghan had once told her that Mr Akpabio asked her to meet him in a hotel.  

“The three of us have not been sexually harassed. That’s not to say if Senator Natasha can prove that she has been. That is fine. We will support her. But she’s never discussed it with us. We don’t know about it,” Ms Kingibe said.  

She added: “I collected some documents for Senator Natasha, informed her, and went to her house. She told me that she was supposed to discuss something with Akpabio, but he said to meet him at a hotel.”  

Ms Kingibe also said Akpoti-Uduaghan’s outburst over the change of her seat in the Senate was unwarranted because her seat had been changed about four times.  

“Silence is golden, especially when one of us is not following the rules. And as women, we did not want to come out publicly to say anything negative about her; and we were hoping all of this would blow over, as a lot of things do,” Ms Kingibe said.  

 “This is about the rules of the Senate. So if I can point out that other women have been moved several times. On that day, I wasn’t there, but I gathered that several men were also moved.”  

Earlier on Friday, Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan, in an interview with Arise TV, accused Mr Akpabio of sexually harassing her and frustrating her attempts to move a motion in the Senate.  

Mr Akpabio is yet to respond to Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan’s allegations. However, his wife, Ekaette Akpabio, has dismissed the claims as false and a figment of wild imagination.