Natasha Akpoti: Her soundbites, and her play to gallery, by Tope Popoola
Senator Natasha Akpoti is a very brilliant lady. Anyone who tells me she doesn’t know what she is doing is simply one of the people she allegedly described as “gullible and hungry”. She is a lawyer and is not ignorant of the law.
However, she is also a politician, and a rugged one at that who has survived many battles. So she knows the power of optics and soundbytes. And she is milking it as tools to take her from the backside of Kogi politics to the front-stage of national visibility. In politics, what matters is getting attention, for good or bad. Of the people who notice you, some will like you and some won’t. But none can ignore you. And that is the game!
Her appearance at the senate was a scripted thing. She knew she didn’t get a court order in her favour. Aisha Yesufu who doesn’t know that she is being used as a mascot, was talking to the press and condemning the court judgment she had not seen, even when she didn’t stay in the courtroom when it was read.
Even if the court had ruled in her favour, Natasha as a lawyer and lawmaker, understands the illegality of self-help as a means of enforcing a court ruling, especially when you do so in breach. Let me explain. You cannot seek to enforce one part of a judgment that favour you when you have neglected to, and categorically said you would not, obey the part of the judgment that clearly convicts you! That is double standards. In matters of law, you don’t reprobate and approbate simultaneously. Nobody has the right to choose which part of the law to obey.
Natasha’s appeal and the Senate’s cross appeal are two separate issues. The Senate is appealing the judgment because it pronounced on an issue that was not brought before it, ignoring the issue of the court’s competence or not to hear the suit.
Natasha is appealing against the judgment itself. I just read an excerpt from Natasha’s appeal against the judgment. Ground 23 of the appeal reveals WITHOUT AMBIGUITY that she and her lawyers KNOW that there was NO ORDER of the court to reinstate her.
But they also know that the intellectual slothfulness and emotional highs of many people on social media, especially the “hactivists” who need the optics for validation and ‘relevance’, will not permit them to interrogate the issues properly in the light of FACTS. In their world, emotions, not facts, rule. Even when information is so READILY available, they don’t care, because once they latch on to a narrative, they don’t let go even when facts on ground negate their assertion. That’s when they resort to abuse and guttersnipes with anyone who doesn’t share their narrative. It’s all a game that makes their ‘content’ trend. Natasha knows that and is milking it. I bet she returns home after every public “show” to relax and sit with a bowl of popcorn while watching the drama she put together.
In case you have not noticed, the emphasis has now shifted from allegation of s.exual harassment to being the face and voice of “oppressed” and “silenced” women in Nigeria.
That had always been the gameplan. The whole charade in the senate and the public baiting with the unsubstantiated harassment story was all part of the script leading the current denouement. And guess what? It’s working.
Brilliant, distinguished Senator Natasha, brilliant!
You still think she is naive?
Dey play!
–Popoola is a US-based arbitrator and a clergy
