Sexual harassment allegation: Akpabio should step aside – Ex-PDP spokesman

A former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kola Ologbondiyan, has asked Senate President, Godswill Akpabio to step down to enable an impartial probe into the sexual harassment allegation against him.

Ologbondiyan stated this in a Facebook post on Sunday.

Akpabio has been in the eye of the storm since Friday, when Senator for Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan claimed that he made unwanted sexual advances towards her.

The Senate President vehemently denied the allegation through his media consultant, Kenny Okulogbo.

However, Ologbondiyan urged the Senate President to step aside as early as the next plenary session on Tuesday.

He said should Akpabio fail to do this, other senators must compel him to do so to save the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly from “wholesale debasement”.

Ologbondiyan said, “The horrid stories churning out of the Senate are, to say the least, disgusting. It is, therefore, time for the men of valour, who are in the Senate, to rise and rescue the institution from a wholesale debasement.

“When Nigeria was a more civil and a more democratic clime, with the Senate as it ought to be, Akpabio would, at the next plenary sitting (presumably on Tuesday), rise to tell his colleagues that he would step aside to clear his image, which, intrinsically, is the image of the Senate.

“But if Akpabio failed to rise in defence of the Senate on Tuesday, it will be the duty of the lawmaking body, as an institution, in her own honour, to save the Senate from this messy allegation of ‘Sexual Harassment’ by asking Akpabio to step aside.

“That is the only way to sanitise the Senate and restore public confidence in the National Assembly.”