They couldn’t silence her in the Senate, so they came for her voice. Now they want us to believe the echo they created is real.
A nation still wrestling with patriarchy cloaked in prestige and power, one would think that when a woman dares to speak truth to power, especially from within the hallowed chambers of the Senate, her voice would be heard with dignity, not digitally manipulated and dragged through the gutters of Facebook live shows.
On May 1st, 2025, a Facebook livestream aired from an unlikely court of judgment a living room broadcast turned battleground, hosted by Sandra C. Duru, known online as “Prof. Mgbeke.” Her target.Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
She emerged with a cocktail of accusations, insinuations, and carefully curated voice notes aimed squarely at Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. It was less of a revelation and more of a performance,a theatre of shadows starring Duru as the messenger of convenience and, allegedly, Senator Godswill Akpabio as the unseen puppeteer.
Her weapon.An edited array of voice notes and an accusation that Senator Akpoti offered her ₦200 million to fabricate claims against Senate President Godswill Akpabio. What followed was not a pursuit of truth, but a spectacle.
If you claim to possess exonerating audio where a woman who has put her name, face, and career on the line to speak out against sexual harassment”agreed” that she was never harassed, the very least you can do is play the full recording. Not snippets. Not voiceovers. Not a remix with effects. The full thing. Anything less is not journalism, it is propaganda disguised as confession.
What Prof Mgbeke claimed to possess a voice recording in which Akpoti allegedly denies ever being harassed by Akpabio was conspicuously withheld. She played other tapes. She showed call logs. But the supposed centerpiece of her claim never surfaced. In its place, we got noise, stitched audio, and innuendo wrapped in digital drama.
In serious matters, allegations of sexual harassment at the highest levels of government, this kind of playacting is dangerous. Because if this is a game, the stakes are real. Reputations destroyed, justice derailed, and the quiet message sent to every woman watching that even in 2025, there is still a price to pay for speaking up.
What Senator Akpoti has endured since filing her formal complaint against the Senate President is the sort of institutional backlash that history knows too well. First, she was questioned. Then, she was doubted. Now, her very voice is being recast as fiction. Not in court. Not before an investigative panel. But in a Facebook live session delivered with performance polish and zero accountability.
There is no mistake about what this is. It’s not a search for truth. It is damage control a campaign not to clarify facts but to blur them. The real story is not what was said in a voice note. The real story is why anyone would go this far to undo a woman’s testimony.
And let’s not ignore the timing. When powerful institutions begin to squirm, they reach for familiar tools.Distraction, distortion, and discredit. Sandra Duru’s sudden appearance with an arsenal of half-revealed “evidence”fits neatly into this choreography. Such caricature performance doesn’t challenge Akpoti’s claims, it avoids them.
There is no room for ambiguity here. If a woman accuses a sitting Senate President of misconduct, the appropriate response is a transparent investigation, not a viral takedown delivered in monologue. If you believe the truth is on your side, you don’t hide the tape you release it in full, uncut, and unscored.
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan did not just speak out. She stood alone in a room where silence had always been the safer currency. What follows such defiance is often isolation, ridicule, and in this case, digital assassination. But this moment will be remembered not for the noise made around her, but for the clarity of her stand.
History is watching. So are countless young women learning what it means to raise their voices in places built to keep them quiet.
This isn’t just about Natasha. This is about how power defends itself, and who it chooses to sacrifice in the process.
Let history write this plainly. When a woman dared to speak truth to power, they didn’t argue with facts they forged a fiction. But voices like hers do not vanish. They rise, even in the noise, especially in the noise.
Stephanie Shaakaa
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