Confusion Deepens Over Senator Suspension Report as Lawmaker Denies Seeing Document

(Senetor Ireti Kingibe. Photo Credit: Premuim times)

Senator Ireti Kingibe, who represents the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has stated that she never saw the report that recommended the six-month suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of Kogi Central in 2025.

Speaking on a television programme on Wednesday, Kingibe explained that she had attended an earlier session of the Committee on Petitions and Public Complaints alongside other senators and signed the attendance register, but left shortly afterward to attend a tax reform retreat, which she considered a more pressing priority for her constituents at the time.

She said she assumed other committee members present would handle the matter in her absence.

Kingibe revealed that she later raised concerns with fellow lawmakers, particularly Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, expressing frustration that she had not been shown the report before it was finalized a situation she said remains unresolved, as she has still not seen the document to date.

Her remarks come days after Senator Adams Oshiomhole of Edo North alleged that the signatures of at least three lawmakers, including Kingibe's, had either been forged or improperly included in the report recommending Akpoti-Uduaghan's suspension.

Oshiomhole had claimed that some senators privately told him they neither signed the report nor endorsed its findings, specifically citing Kingibe as having expressed surprise at discovering her name listed among the signatories.

However, he later retracted the allegation, stating that no signatures in the report had in fact been forged.