Suspended Senator representing Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has filed a N5 billion defamation suit against Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, who represents Ebonyi North, over statements she described as “false, malicious, and a deliberate attempt to tarnish her reputation.”
The lawsuit, filed at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) through her legal counsel, M. J. Numa, SAN, accuses Senator Nwaebonyi of making defamatory remarks during a March 6, 2025 interview on Channels TV’s “Sunrise Daily.”
According to court documents, Akpoti-Uduaghan alleges that Nwaebonyi called her a “gold digger,” a “habitual liar,” and a “habitual blackmailer,” further claiming she had “six children for different men,” and that her husband, Chief Emmanuel Uduaghan, “married her under duress.”
“These statements were broadcast nationally and rebroadcast across multiple online and social media platforms, thus ensuring wide publication,” the senator said in her statement of claim, adding that the allegations were “false, malicious and targeted at bringing her image to disrepute.”
She maintained that the defendant’s comments were “baseless, reckless, and detrimental to her public perception and private life,” insisting that the accusations were calculated to injure her reputation and discredit her petition against her suspension.
“The claimant further contends that these statements in their natural and ordinary meaning, are meant and were understood to portray the claimant: as someone who constantly extorts people for money through dishonest and unscrupulous means as a career… as someone who demands money or other benefits in return for silence… and as a woman who forms relationships purely for financial gain,” the suit reads.
Akpoti-Uduaghan accused Senator Nwaebonyi, who serves as the Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate and a member of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions, of deliberately making the statements to prejudice public perception and influence the Senate’s decision regarding her six-month suspension.
She is asking the court for N5 billion in aggravated and exemplary damages, an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant and his affiliates from making or publishing any further defamatory statements, a public retraction and unreserved apology in at least two national newspapers and on the same platforms used to publish the original claims, and post-judgment interest on the awarded damages at 10% per annum until full payment.
“No date has been fixed yet for hearing the matter,” the court document notes.
“The claimant is an inspiration to women in politics and aspiring women for speaking truth to power,” the suit further emphasizes. “She is not spoiling the chance of women in politics as falsely alleged, rather she is inspiring women to be bold in their quest for politics and good governance.”