It’s time for Natasha to prove allegations, Akpabio’s aide says
By Jeffrey Agbo
President of the Senate’s media aide, Jackson Udom, has countered Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s latest claims regarding a pending defamation lawsuit, describing her statement as “incorrectly and misleadingly” suggesting the case was newly instituted.
In a statement titled “Setting the Record Straight on the Defamation Case Involving Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan,” Udom said the senator “again resorted to social media” on 5 December 2025 to assert that Senate President Godswill Akpabio had just filed a multi-billion-naira suit over allegations of sexual misconduct. He insisted that “the suit was filed over three months ago.”
According to him, the allegations Akpoti-Uduaghan levelled against the Senate President “have never been supported by a single shred of evidence before the Senate Committee or before any competent authority.” He added that the Senate President acted within his rights by seeking redress after “grave and unsubstantiated accusations capable of inflicting severe reputational damage.”
Udom said progress on the matter had been slowed only by “routine administrative processes and the normal judicial procedures.” He noted that when the court resumed action on the file, its bailiff made several unsuccessful attempts to serve Akpoti-Uduaghan personally because of what he described as “her deliberate evasion of service, as deposed to under oath in the bailiff’s affidavit.” He stated that the court approved substituted service only after these failed attempts.
He stressed that Akpoti-Uduaghan’s assertion that the suit was “just filed” was “false, misleading, and intended to distort public understanding of the case.”
Udom criticised what he called her reliance on social-media activism, saying “legal disputes are resolved in courtrooms, not through orchestrated narratives and staged outrage on social-media platforms.” He added that “the online applause Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan habitually seeks cannot replace credible evidence, legal procedure, or judicial scrutiny.”
Referencing her earlier disciplinary episode in the Senate, he said, “this behaviour is consistent with her pattern during her six-month Senate suspension,” which she attempted to challenge through “digital agitation,” but still “ultimately serve[d]… in full.”
Udom maintained it was time for her to present what she claims to possess: “It is time for Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan to present the ‘evidence’ she claims to possess before a court of competent jurisdiction.” He warned that “the law is guided by proof, procedure, and due process, not sentiment, not emotion, and certainly not social-media theatrics,” urging her to “properly instruct her lawyers, file her defence, and finally provide the evidence she purports to have.”
He concluded that this moment “is… her golden opportunity,” noting that “the public, the media, and the legal community now await her defence to the defamatory claims of the plaintiff.”
