The vote of confidence passed in the leadership of Senate President Godswill Akpabio last Thursday was only a reflection of the tension that has engulfed the legislative body following the outbursts of Mrs Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.

The action of a parliament passing a vote of confidence in the leadership is normally a design for parliamentary democracies. However, over time in Nigeria, where the presidential system is our style, time and again, we have seen embattled leaderships of the National Assembly force lawmakers to invoke confidence votes to project political verve.

On April 13, 2000, at the height of the crisis in the Chuba Okadigbo leadership, the Senate passed a vote of confidence in the leadership of the Anambra State-born Senate President.

Four months later, the same Okadigbo was removed as Senate President in a way that brought to question the whereabouts of the spirit that inspired the earlier confidence vote.

Though the lawmakers who passed the confidence vote in Akpabio last Thursday did not mention it, they were undoubtedly troubled by the legitimacy questions that have recently enveloped the Senate following the Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan saga.

That legitimacy question followed the sexual harassment allegation raised against Akpabio by Akpoti-Uduaghan. The Senate’s response was to suspend her, citing sundry offences bordering on an alleged lack of respect for the institution.

The suspension was particularly vicious, and the constraints placed on her were severe.

They barred her from ever presenting herself anywhere as a senator. However, the woman who wrestled two of the most pugnacious political actors to have come out of Kogi State in modern times – Yahaya Bello and Dino Melaye – was not one to be deterred.

Hours after she was barred from ever presenting herself as a senator, Akpoti-Uduaghan was at an event of the International Parliamentary Union, IPU, where she told the whole world the story that the Senate had constrained her from presenting.

The emotive narration of Akpoti-Uduaghan before the IPU was so touching that the president of the IPU, Tulia Ackson, said that the body would have to take Akpabio’s side before taking a position on the matter.

After Akpoti-Uduaghn took the case to the IPU it was not difficult for some Nigerians to attack her for externalising what should have been the internal affairs of the country.

However, her resort to the IPU was essentially because the Nigerian Senate had muzzled her and refused her a voice to ventilate what some now allege as her bottled-up emotions against the Senate President.

It is the same spirit of lack of opportunities to express themselves that is driving many Nigerians to escape the country and find expression in foreign countries.

Akpabio and the Senate could well have avoided the ugly association of the legislative body being enmeshed in a sexual harassment allegation by allowing an unfettered investigation that could have proved his innocence or otherwise.

The image of the Senate has been further battered by the reports that the chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Senator Ndea Imasuen, who recommended Akpoti-Uduaghan for suspension, has a heavier ethical question to answer.

The senator has yet to respond to the allegation that he was disbarred in New York over an alleged fraud case.

Senator Imasuen had, as the saga unveiled itself, been quoted as saying that Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan’s petition was dead on arrival.

However, since the reports of Senator Imasuen’s alleged misdeeds in New York, he has surprisingly turned mu,m evoking concerns on the moral platform on which the Senate has vested its probity.

At the closed-door session of the Senate last Wednesday, this correspondent learnt that many senators were sufficiently troubled by the public relations nightmare caused by the Akpbio-Natasha saga that some like Senators Abdul Ningi and Danjuma Goje, suggested constituting a committee to investigate the issue. Senator Serikae Dickson according to sources even suggested an outright recall of Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan from suspension. He was quoted as saying that he would have opposed the suspension had he been present when the decision was taken penultimate Thursday.

There were others, like a fiery former labour leader who thought the Senate should not be seen as succumbing to public pressure.

Whatever, as we learnt from the case of Senator Okadigbo 25 years ago, the Senate that says yes today can tomorrow say no.

The lesson for Akpabio is to swiftly move to address every area of concern and by that remove everything that fuels the agitation. What Akpabio could do is to go before a reconstituted Committee on Ethics to defend himself before whatever claims or evidence that Akpoti-Uduaghan may bring against him. If he successfully defends himself the stigma would really be on Natasha.