Akpabio and Natasha Stay Quiet on New Claims by Activist

Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Kogi Central Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan are not commenting on new claims made by activist Sandra Duru, known as Prof Mgbeke. She alleges that Akpabio hired her to campaign against Akpoti-Uduaghan.

Duru made this claim in a nine-minute audio recording released on social media on Friday, which went viral on Saturday. This new information contradicts her earlier statement where she said Akpoti-Uduaghan tried to recruit her to make claims against Akpabio.

Duru described the recording as a preview of more details about her relationship with Akpabio and the ongoing issue with Akpoti-Uduaghan. She also shared parts of the recording where a male voice, which she claims is Akpabio’s, talks about political matters involving former Delta State governor Ifeanyi Okowa and senator Ned Nwoko from the state.

In one part of the recording, Akpabio reportedly said Okowa joined the All Progressives Congress due to worries about corruption cases, not out of sincerity. But the truth of the recording, the identities of the speakers, and the complete context of the conversation could not be verified by Sunday PUNCH at the time of this report.

Attempts to get a response from Akpabio’s media aide, Eseme Eyiboh, were unsuccessful. Eyiboh did not answer calls or reply to messages asking for clarification on the claims. The Akpoti-Uduaghan camp also chose not to respond. When contacted, her media aide Mike Idoko said they were not interested in the matter. “We have no comment on this issue, please,” he told our reporter before ending the call.

This situation comes over a year after Duru was involved in the conflict between Akpabio and Akpoti-Udughan. In May 2025, Duru claimed Akpoti-Uduaghan offered her N200 million to make false claims against Akpabio. Akpoti-Uduaghan denied this and called Duru’s claims false.

The conflict grew, with Akpoti-Uduaghan filing a complaint with the Inspector-General of Police regarding allegations involving Akpabio and Duru. She asked for an investigation into what her lawyers called a planned attack against her.

Duru has now released the new recording as proof of a different version of her relationship with the Senate President. As of the time of this report, neither Akpabio nor his office had publicly confirmed or denied the truth or content of the recording.

The PUNCH reported on January 24, 2026, that a High Court in the Federal Capital Territory stopped Duru and Meta Platforms Inc., the owners of Facebook, from spreading materials that were said to be defamatory against Akpoti-Uduaghan. Justice I. Mohammed delivered the ruling in Suit No: FCT/HC/CV/229/2025 after Akpoti-Uduaghan applied for urgent protection against what she called ongoing online attacks on her character.

In a Certified True Copy of the ruling seen by our correspondent, the court stated that the application raised “a serious question to be tried” and that immediate action was needed to prevent serious harm to the claimant's reputation until the main case was heard.

Justice Mohammed then ordered that Duru, “either by herself, her agents, privies, or however called, is restrained from further publishing, posting, sharing, disseminating or promoting on Facebook or any other social media platform any material containing defamatory, scandalous, inciteful or injurious content against the Applicant pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.”

The court also ordered Meta Platforms Inc. to “immediately take down and/or disable access to all offending publications, posts or broadcasts made by the 1st Defendant against the Claimant, whether in her personal name or under the pseudonym ‘Prof. Mgbeke,’ pending the determination of the suit.”

The new claims in the audio remain unverified as we await responses from those involved and any independent checks of the recording.