The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has described the withholding of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s international passport at the airport as a “normal vetting procedure.”
The senator had accused immigration authorities of unlawfully seizing her travel documents and alleged that the order came directly from Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
Akpoti-Uduaghan claimed that Akpabio instructed the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Immigration Service “to seize my passport at the airport preventing me from travelling.”
In a video circulating online, Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan confronted immigration officers, lamenting that she has “committed no offence” and insisting there is no court order restricting her travel.
She said, “Hello, fellow Nigerians, good morning. This is Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. I have just completed the celebration of my second year in office.
I decided to take a week off. So I’m at the airport here and my passport has been withheld again. The same thing happened last time where my passport was seized.
“I have committed no offence and there is no order from the court to withhold my passport and deny me travelling. The last time this happened, the person officer in charge told us that the Senate President Godswill Akpabio instructed them to withhold my passport and prevent me from travelling because he said each time I travel out of the country, I smear the country’s image by granting interviews out in international media. Please, can you tell them to release my passport and this embarrassment should stop.
“You have no right to withhold my passport. You have no right to deny me exit and entrance into my country. I have not committed any offence and this must stop.
“No, this must stop. As a matter of fact, I think I have to sue you for continuously embarrassing me. No, don’t tell me sorry.
“Can I please have my passport? You can’t keep doing this to me all the time. I’ve been standing here for the past 20 minutes. Why are you doing this? What have I committed? The last time it had to take someone influential to call you to release my passport. That was what allowed me to travel.
“Now again, you’re withholding my passport. Why are you making calls? Is Godswill Akpabio so important? Why is he overruling boundaries? Godswill Akpabio, the Senate president, has instructed the Comptroller General of Customs to deny me exit, to withhold my passport. This is wrong,” she said.
She further stated that earlier federal cases against her had been withdrawn on the president’s instruction after he acknowledged the cases were politically motivated, and thus, she argued, there was no legitimate reason for immigration to seize her passport this time.
“There was no other. Yes, I know I have two federal government cases against me, of which the president of Nigeria instructed the AGF to cancel the cases, to withdraw the cases
