The Senator representing Kogi Central District, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has told the Federal High Court in Abuja that her statements accusing the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello of orchestrating an assassination plot against her did not amount to defamation.
Mrs. Akpoti-Uduaghan stated that both rivals of hers have no good reputation to protect.
The Senator made the submission in a notice of preliminary objection to ongoing cyberbullying and defamation charges filed against her by the federal government.
In the objection, dated 18 September and marked CR/195/25, the senator, through her lawyer, Michael Numa, SAN, argued that both Messrs Akpabio and Bello had abused their respective offices.
She said Mr Akpabio, during his tenure as Akwa Ibom governor, was accused of several incidents of violence, while Mr Bello was accused of mismanaging state funds when he served as Kogi governor.
The senator maintained that those allegations are more grievous than any supposed defamation the government claimed she committed.
The application, filed pursuant to Sections 6(6)(c), 42(1), and 174(3) of the Nigerian Constitution, is supported by a 17-page affidavit deposed to by Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan herself.
In the affidavit, she argued that the cyberbullying and defamation suits were not instituted in the public interest, but rather to serve the personal interests of Messrs Akpabio and Bello.
She maintained that her statements accusing the two men of plotting to assassinate her were personal imputations and did not relate to their official capacities as public officers.
The lawmaker further alleged that the police failed to conduct any credible investigation before the federal government proceeded to file the charges against her.
Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan stated that she would, in the subsequent parts of her affidavit, tender documentary evidence to prove that the charges amounted to an abuse of the legal and prosecutorial powers of the Attorney-General of the Federation, insisting that the prosecution was politically motivated.
