Natasha: ‘Anatomy of female power’

In Chinweizu’s critique of the basics of feminism in his 1990 treatise, ‘Anatomy of Female Power: A masculinist dissection of matriarchy’, he argues that “Female power exists; it hangs over every man like a ubiquitous shadow...

” He notes that this occurs in three phases of a man’s life. “From birth to puberty, he is ruled by mother-power..



.Then he passes into the territory of bride-power..

.the cuddlesome and tender wench he feels he cannot live without..

. He then passes into the domain of wife-power..

.This phase lasts till he is either divorced, widowed or dead.”Though the Bible admonishes men to treat women as weaker vessels, I see it from the prisms of muscular power and emotional balance.

But in terms of doggedness to convictions and identified causes, women are largely undaunted. Most of them are no pushovers as they can go to any length to defend their pursuits or avenge abuses. Hence, the English playwright, William Congreve in the 1697 play, ‘The Mourning Bride’, opines that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

” This is playing out in the seemingly unending brawl with Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of Kogi Central. She was clamped a 6-month suspension for breaching the standing rule of the Senate. But she insists that her ordeal is suffused with political victimization from the Senate President Godswill Akpabio whom she accused of sexual harassment, abuse of office, and malicious obstruction of her legislative duties.

And like a festering wound, it appears that all the parties have murdered sleep. First, the Senate wielded the big stick according to its self-imposed ‘Law of the Medes and Persians’ but the ghost of the sledgehammer has remained restless and refused to be caged. Even the bravado of the likes of Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, Akpabio’s man Friday, failed to cow Natasha’s spirit.

Instead, she has been toughened like someone who goes on the offensive when intimidated (apologies to Joseph Garba’s ‘Diplomatic Soldiering’). googletag.cmd.

push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1718806029429-0'); }); Second, in a surprising turn of event, Natasha, who felt that she was not given a fair hearing by the Senate decided to internationalize her struggle and showed up at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting at the United Nations headquarters, New York, in mid-March 2025. As someone on the mailing list of IPU, it was not difficult to register online.

She attended the talk shop of national parliaments at her own cost. The icing on the cake for her trip was that she had the nod of the leadership to present her emotion-laden case. This was a big embarrassment to Akpabio and the country.

She also claimed that after her speech, Akpabio arranged with some key officials of Nigerian Embassy in the US to throw her out from the UN premises, but she was rescued by the security personnel and other parliamentarians.The legal suits and threats of further suits notwithstanding, all the attempts to muzzle Natasha are inadvertently making her a heroine. A politically induced recall process was started to humiliate her out of office.

Overnight, thousands of signatories of registered voters in her constituency were manufactured to fulfill the condition precedent to begin the recall. But to her reprieve, the two separate notifications sent to INEC failed to meet the constitutional threshold of 50+% of signatories and other procedural conditions.And to prove that most of the signatories were deceptively lured with a promise of economic empowerment, and not Natasha’s recall, she planned a physical visit to her constituency.

The Kogi State Government became enraged and deployed allegedly contrived security report to stop her. Curfew was imposed. Political rallies were suspended.

Movement of persons and vehicles were banned. All the major access roads to her hometown from the neighbouring states were blocked. But her people defied the curfew and trooped out in thousands to receive her.

To the greatest chagrin of those who blocked the land and sea, Natasha came back home by air via a chattered helicopter and connected live with her jubilant constituents. It turned out a strategic error for Natasha’s traducers and became a defining moment for her. In fact, her uppercut finished off those who attempted to restrict the planned hosting of Sallah celebrations for her constituents.

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push({})}); My concern from the foregoing stems from the four implications. First, more female voices are joining the fray of Natasha’s defence. The strong voices of influential women like Oby Ezekwesili, Betty Akeredolu, Hilda Dokubo, and Aisha Yesufu, cannot be ignored or waived aside.

This gradual build-up must be reconciliatorily contained, not guillotined. They should not be allowed to carry a play card of global campaign. Second, the dimension of alleged plot of assassination is a big dent.

And Nigeria’s distraught citizens rarely disbelieve bad news against her leaders even when the law courts declare otherwise. Third, the Police institution, as always, has shamefully been dragged to the mess. How can the citizenry trust the Police where sensitive matter like a security report had a resemblance of politicization? Four, the stoking fire of ethnicity is being fanned.

Natasha claims that Akpabio removed her from the chairmanship of Local Content Committee five days after the groundbreaking of five mini-LNG refineries in Ajaokuta, part of her constituency, on the ground that she was allegedly promoting the North. According to her, “The Senate President, who was furious, stated that how can such projects be established in the North instead of the South-South.” Whether true or false, this may pitch Akpabio against his Northern supporters.

My counsel to Akpabio, who was rated highly by Nigerians because of his star performance as governor of Akwa Ibom, is that he should quickly deploy the instrument of peace and reconciliation to salvage what remains of his reputation. Nobody is infallible. He should reach out to Abdulsalam Abubakar and Hassan Kukah-led National Peace Committee or influential traditional rulers, to intervene.

He should learn from the way the Ooni of Ife saved further embarrassment to Afe Babalola in his matter with Dele Farotimi. Otherwise, fixating on destroying Natasha might be a pyrrhic victory. A farrago of missteps could be expensive.

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