By Mike Osumah
One of the elementary rules I first learnt in journalism school eons ago is that opinions are free but facts are sacred.
This time-honoured principle has therefore become my guiding light whenever I want to say or write anything- be it news bulletins, ad copies, commentaries, elevated gossips, random musings, warts and all!
And for any journalist worth his salt, you know you run the risk of libel and defamation if you publish untruths because under the law you cannot be spared- your victim can always get reprieve if he or she takes recourse in the law.
Indeed, yours truly started off with the above preamble advisedly because it speaks to the heart of the personality clashes between the Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the senator representing the Kogi Central.
It doesn’t bear repeating all the ugly, and I daresay salacious details already served to the public by the senator herself.
But it would be remiss of me not to inform Nigerians about the position of the law as it concerns the allegations raised by the senator in all the public appearances she has made.
Wait for this: there is a caveat; yours truly is not an interested party and neither am I obligated to any of the parties involved in this brouhaha. No. Like Mr. Ben Murray Bruce, widely known as Mr. Commonsense, I just want to make some sense out of this whole thing!
Now let’s take the issues apart and break them one after the other. With the benefit of hindsight apart from the allegations of sexual harassment levelled against Senator Akpabio, the festy lady at the upper legislative chamber also accused him of muder, organ harvesting; which in every material particular as the lawyers are wont to say, are clearly dastardly and criminal act in themselves.
Specifically, Senator Natasha, according to available information had engaged Sandra Duru, a United Kingdom (UK)-based activist, popularly known as Professor Mgbeke, and allegedly offered her the sum of N200 million to falsely accuse Akpabio of organ harvesting.
The activist made the claim during a live Facebook session and said there are recordings where the suspended senator admitted having no evidence against the senate president.
Akpoti-Uduaghan has since denied the allegation, dismissing the live stream content as “untrue and manipulated”.
It would be recalled that in 2021, 26-year-old Iniubong Umoren, a female job seeker, went missing after meeting a Twitter user for a job opportunity in Akwa Ibom.
Uduak Umoh, a friend of Iniubong, announced her death after raising concerns about her disappearance.
Subsequently, the police operatives in Akwa Ibom arrested Uduak Akpan, a suspect, who allegedly confessed to sexually and physically assaulting the late Iniubong and burying her body in a shallow grave at his father’s house.
Akpan was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to death by the Akwa Ibom high court on August 4, 2022.
Certainly, Natasha’s claims if indeed she made them, should not to be treated as just mere random musings by some crackpot who doesn’t know her left from right. No. The person making the claims and the victim are both public figures and as such owe us the responsibility of telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
This is why as concerned citizens we all must not allow this case to suffer from the conspiracy of silence.
Thankfully, the family of the late Iniubong Umoren and legal experts are now considering legal redress against Senator Natasha for spreading what they call “defamatory and destabilising misinformation.”
Firing the first salvo, Ifiok Umoren, the elder sister of the late Iniubong Umoren, has refuted claims that the deceased organs were harvested following her murder in April 2021.
While addressing newsmen at a press conference last Saturday, in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom, in response to recent claims by Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, suspended senator representing Kogi central, that Senate President Godswill Akpabio was involved in harvesting Iniubong’s organ to save his wife, the deceased’s sister said no body part was missing from autopsy to burial.
Flanked by Friday Johnson Itim, Akwa Ibom’s Director of Public Prosecution, and Samuel Abdullah of the Legal Aid Council, Ifiok said the claim was a distortion of truth.
Ifiok described the allegation as “outrageous” and “deeply hurtful,” adding that she personally witnessed the autopsy, during which the internal organs were confirmed intact.
“How can someone claim that my sister’s organs were harvested when I was right there during the autopsy?” she queried.
“This accusation is not only false but also dishonours the memory of my sister and retraumatises our family.”
Ifiok recalled how Iniubong informed her of a job interview before she went missing and how she helped in tracing the suspect and alerting security agencies.
“After her death, the police took the body for autopsy at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital,” she said. “I was present. No organ was missing.”
Backing her position, Itim said the crime was committed solely by Akpan, who attacked Iniubong after she refused unprotected sex.
“He killed her in anger, buried her in a shallow grave and fled,” he said.
“His arrest was made possible through help from his family and the local council chairman.
Also, Abdullah said the allegation of organ trafficking did not come up at any point during court proceedings.
“Neither the prosecution nor defence ever mentioned Senator Akpabio,” he said.
“The autopsy report is available to the public and shows that all organs were intact.”
Emeka Nwafor, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, testified under oath in 2021 that though the corpse showed signs of trauma and decomposition, there was no indication of organ removal.
Clearly, with the way things have panned out thus far, it does appears that Senator Natasha would literally need to “explain taya” to borrow the popular street lingo.
That indeed is the burden of proof, which in the legal contexts, refers to the obligation to establish the truth of a factual assertion.
This principle is often expressed in the Latin phrase “ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat,” meaning “the burden of proof rests on who asserts, not on who denies”.
Pray, who’ll help Madam Distinguish Natasha to unbundle the burden of proof?
The answer I daresay is hanging in the air.
•Osumah, a public affairs commentator, writes from Lagos
