The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has countered allegations made by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, stating that her passport was “never seized” during an airport incident on Tuesday.
The controversy began when the Senator representing Kogi Central, in a live Facebook broadcast from the airport, raised an alarm that immigration officials were preventing her from travelling abroad.
Visibly upset, she alleged that her passport was being withheld without legal justification.
“Having completed my second-year celebration, I decided to take a week off. I’m at the airport, and my passport has been withheld again. Have I committed any offence?”
she questioned the officials during the livestream. “There was no order. 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.”
The senator grew more confrontational, threatening legal action. “You have no right to withhold my passport or deny me exit from my country. I have committed no offence, and this must stop,” she stated. “I think I have to sue you for continuously embarrassing me. You can’t keep doing this every time… I am not a flight risk. I am not a risk to my country. So why are you treating me like a criminal?”
Minutes after the public confrontation, the situation de-escalated as an officer returned her passport. “Can I have my passport, please? Thank you very much. Sometimes you just have to be a rebel to get things right. If I had not gone public, would you have given me my passport?” the senator asked, as officials could be heard apologising in the background.
However, the NIS presented a different account of the event. In an interview with Channels Television, the Service’s spokesperson, Akinsola Akinlabi, denied the core of the senator’s allegation. “NIS didn’t seize the distinguished senator’s passport, but rather she went through routine immigration checks and was allowed to travel,” Akinlabi stated.
He clarified that the officers were merely performing their statutory duties. “The NIS officers needed to conduct their checks. They may take your passport to do so, but that doesn’t mean it was seized as alleged,” he explained. “She has since been allowed to travel. Perhaps while waiting for the checks to be completed, she assumed she was being stopped from travelling.”
Akinlabi also pointed out that the senator’s video was made during the process, not after its conclusion. “The video was made while she was going through the checks, not after. The passport was never seized,” he reiterated.
When asked if Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan had resisted handing over her passport for inspection, the NIS spokesperson replied, “I don’t know about that.” He did, however, affirm that officers are “authorised to collect passports for verification and must return them once done, which they did.”
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