However, despite the court’s orders, the Senate Committee held its meeting and suspended the plaintiff for six months.

Justice Nyako took over the matter following the recusal of the previous judge, Egwuatu. In a ruling on March 25, he returned the case file after the Senate President accused him of bias.

Cited as defendants in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/384/2025, are the Clerk of the National Assembly, the Senate and the Senate President, Mr. Godswill Akpabio, as well as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Nedamwen Imasuen.

While the embattled lawmaker, through her team of lawyers, led by Mr. Jubril Okutepa urged the court to invalidate her suspension, which she said was done in disobedience to a valid court order, the defendants challenged the court’s jurisdiction to meddle in what they termed an internal affair of the Senate.

More so, the defendants accused the plaintiff of breaching the court’s order on April 4, which gagged the parties from public utterances on the pending matter.

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Akpabio, through his lawyer, Mr. Kehinde Ogunwumiju, specifically drew the court’s attention to what he described as ‘a satirical apology’ the plaintiff tendered to him on her Facebook page.

Akpabio insisted that the apology was a mockery of the court’s order.

Meanwhile, before Nyako adjourned the matter for judgment, she said she would first consider the issue of contempt raised by the parties before deciding all the preliminary objections.

The trial judge stressed that Natasha’s suit raised ‘recondite issues of law’ that would require judicial interpretation.

Egwuatu issued an interim order on March 4 that stopped the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions from proceeding with the disciplinary proceeding initiated against Akpoti-Uduaghan over an allegation that she flouted legislative house rules.

He held that the disciplinary process should be suspended pending the determination of the suit brought before him by the embattled female lawmaker.

More so, he gave defendants in the matter, 72 hours to show cause why it should not issue an order of interlocutory injunction to stop them from probing the plaintiff for alleged misconduct, without affording her the privileges stipulated in the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the Senate Standing Order 2023, and the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act.