Akpabio’s Silence and Senate’s Cowardice
is a National Embarrassment
By Zagazola Makama
By every measure of leadership, patriotism, and national dignity, the comment credited to Senate President Godswill Akpabio “Who am I to respond to Trump?” is one of the most disgraceful statements ever uttered by the head of a sovereign parliament.
It is a shameful, spineless declaration that reveals the depth of collapse within Nigeria’s legislative leadership. This is not just about Akpabio. This is about a Senate that has become terrified, toothless, and totally compromised.
Foreign politicians continued to make sweeping, reckless, and damaging allegations about Nigeria a sovereign state, an African giant and the Senate President’s response was to shrink, cower, and declare himself too unworthy to defend his own country?
If the Senate President is “nobody” before Trump, then he is certainly nobody before Nigerians.
Today the United States Congress debated Nigeria openly. American experts spoke boldly.
American legislators dissected our internal security challenges, even misframing them in some cases. Yet Nigeria’s Senate? Mute and Afraid to even talk about these issues or investigate them.
Oge Onubogu, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), had to explain that reducing Nigeria’s complex security situation to a single religious narrative was wrong.
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Even U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal stressed that: “The killings in Nigeria aren’t just the persecution of Christians… reducing it to that is simplistic.” Foreigners defended Nigeria better than our own Senate.
But Akpabio and his colleagues sat in silence because many of them have mansions, bank accounts, and families stashed in America, and fear visa bans more than national shame. They cannot raise their voices because they serve two gods: greed and self-preservation.
This is the first time in our history that a Nigerian Senate chose silence in the face of a direct international attack on the country’s reputation.
They simply folded their arms, crossed their legs, and waited for the storm to blow over because they have no courage, no patriotism, and no conviction in the sovereignty they swore to defend.
This Senate cannot even debate issues of national security without clamouring for constituency project funds. They cannot investigate insecurity without turning it into a bargaining chip. They cannot legislate for military strength because they are too busy enriching themselves.
Nigeria is in crises, our security forces are overstretched, communities are facing insecurity but the Senate is chasing SUVs, allowances, padded budgets, and vacations.
The Senate is meant to be the last line of defence for national dignity.
Under Akpabio, it has become the first symbol of national weakness. At a time when Nigeria needed a strong voice, Akpabio chose jokes.
At a time when the world was watching, he chose cowardice.
A Senate President who cannot respond to Trump cannot respond to the needs of soldiers, needs required to improve military budgets, cannot respond to bandits, cannot respond to insecurity, cannot respond to corruption, cannot respond to anything.
