LIBERIAN LAWMAKER DEFENDS SENATOR NATASHA AT ECOWAS PARLIAMENT
Hon. Moima Briggs-Mensah did what Nigerian lawmakers, especially the women are too politically scared to do.
How can you suspend a sitting Senator for six whole months, and on top of that, still threaten her with criminal charges, just because she spoke her truth? What kind of democracy is that? What kind of leadership believes it can silence a woman and still call itself democratic?
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan has been silenced by the same system she serves. A woman who earned her place through the ballot now finds herself stripped of her voice by the very institution she represents. Today, she can no longer speak in the Senate. Tomorrow, you say she can’t speak in ECOWAS, and now, you want to jail her too? For what exactly? For asking questions? For standing on her truth? For refusing to play the game the way corrupt power demands?
It took a Liberian lawmaker, Hon. Moima Briggs-Mensah, to say what our own representatives have refused to say. She stood tall at the ECOWAS Parliament and reminded them all: “What happens to one woman in public service should matter to us all.” That statement cut deep, not because it was dramatic, but because it was true. A foreign voice had to defend a Nigerian Senator while the rest of the chamber, including her fellow Nigerians, remained quiet like servants with sealed lips.
The system is trying to isolate her, coerce her, break her spirit, and disgrace her before the world, and they’re using the law to do it. They say it’s about “conduct,” but it’s really about control. When a man is loud and aggressive in politics, they call him bold; a lion, a strongman, but when a woman dares to speak up without blinking, they call her difficult, unruly, untrained. That’s what is playing out here.
This is not about party, tribe or religion. This is not even about one woman anymore, but about the Nigerian system’s habitual fear of outspoken women. It happens again and again, once a woman is not bending, once she is not begging, once she speaks with her full chest, they’ll look for how to finish her, politically and socially.
On this one… we will talk and not be silent. If they can do it to her today, they can do it to any of us tomorrow. The moment you silence one woman in power, you’re sending a message to every other woman to keep quiet or face punishment. That is the game, and we’re done playing it by their rules.
I am ILUO DePOET