The lawmaker representing Ebonyi North, Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi, has defended his heated exchange with former Education Minister, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, during a Senate Ethics Committee hearing in Abuja on Tuesday.
The session, which was intended to investigate sexual harassment allegations involving suspended Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of Kogi Central and Senate President Godswill Akpabio, quickly spiraled into a verbal clash. Nwebonyi, visibly agitated, referred to Ezekwesili as an “insult to womanhood” and a “hooligan” after she allegedly insulted him first.
In an interview on Politics Today, a Channels Television program, Nwebonyi explained that the conflict began when Ezekwesili was asked to take an oath as a witness and refused. He claimed that while he was addressing the presiding officer, she turned to him and said, “Will you shut up your mouth? You are a hooligan.”
Nwebonyi firmly defended his response, saying, “For a grandmother, a former minister of the Federal Republic, to tell a sitting senator to shut up and call him a hooligan—how is that fair?” He added that he had simply “given it back” to her in return for what he perceived as an unjustified insult.
Despite the controversy surrounding the clash, Nwebonyi expressed no regrets. “I respect her as a woman, but I gave it back to her,” he said. “How can I regret the scenario? Ask her first if her conduct was fair.”
