On that hot afternoon in February, when Senator Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan arrived the Senate chamber and noticed that the sitting arrangement had been altered and her seat moved to another spot, all she needed to have done was to clutch her order papers and moved to the new seat, quietly.
But her feet got tired and she refused to move!
Well, that wasn’t how she explained her refusal to relocate to the new seat but her act of defiance bore semblance to the circumstances that ignited a civil strife in the US in the 50s when a civil rights activist, Rosa Parks, was asked to vacate her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus for a white man.
Parks refused to get up explaining to the driver of the bus that her feet were tired. She was arrested quite alright but her act of defiance led to a chain of reactions that popularized opposition to the system of racial segregation.
In the new culture of docility and siding with the oppressor, many Nigerians could not understand why Natasha could not perform the very simple act of moving to the new seat allocated to her which required almost no effort as it was just some inches away from the former one.
But like Parks, Natasha chose the more difficult path of defiance.
Historically, revolutions are not ignited through scripted and regimented progressions. They most times happen spontaneously.
When Parks came out of her house that day and took the bus, she did not have an inkling that a drama would ensue that would put her name on the global map.
When in 1893, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi took the first-class compartment on a train in racist South Africa, he did not prepare to fight a well spelt out that prevents him from seating in such a compartment.
But posterity would record his act of defiance when he refused to leave the compartment for the sin of being a ‘coloured’ after being ordered to do so by the railway officials and was subsequently thrown out of the train.
When in 2010 Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian vendor stepped out of his house he must have thought that it was just an ordinary day until circumstances forced him to take the path of self immolation igniting what later became known as the Arab Spring.
When Natasha set out for legislative business in a burgundy coloured attire with a light green attire veil around her shoulders, she most probably was only ready for the routine of debates on bills and motions or any other matter in line with routine order of lawmaking.
Alas! She had no clue that posterity had something in store for her. Something inside her saw the implication of what ordinarily should have been an innocuous alteration to be complied inconspicuously but she decided to resist.
Her feet got tired and she refused to move!
With the benefit of hindsight, if she had quietly moved to her new seat, she would have missed her chance to make history; if she had been obsequious as some would prefer and taken the lap dog option, she would have forfeited an opportunity to shoot her name to global limelight; if she had chosen to play the lickspittle and had said ‘yes sir, no problem, I remain loyal,’ she would have ended up as any other senator that had been in the Red Chamber.
By aligning with her tired feet that day however, she instantly but inadvertently reintroduced the vibrancy of party/ideological rivalry on the parliament which was fast giving way to a humdrum of slavish acquiescence and became the new face of progressive politics in Nigeria!
Like Julius Malema of South Africa and Millie Odhiambo Mabona of Kenya, Natasha has given us a picture of what legislative proceedings should be about: debates, arguments, disagreements, agreements, lobbying, alligments and realignments.
They tried to suppress her by suspending her from the Senate even making moves to recall her but failed in the second instance.
She has shamed those who would have preferred she acted in a manner that suggests they were doing her a favour when they asked her to move.
In their own estimation, a senator is that yes man or woman who has no mind of his/her own.
Well, she saw the implications of confining her to a less conspicuous side of the chamber where her presence would not be noticed and her efforts to make contributions conveniently ignored and chose to speak against it.
Thank God her feet got tired and she refused to move!
Beautiful write-up. At least I am reading someone who agrees with me that Natasha’s wrong was refusing to succumb.