Ohaneze Ndigbo, the Pan-Igbo sociocultural group, has vowed to resist any attempt to discredit Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu. Ekweremadu faces the prospects of losing some of his assets following legal moves by the federal government.
The government accuses him of owning local and foreign assets he did not declare as expected by law to the Code of Conduct Bureau.
He has, however, denied any wrongdoing, saying he declared all his assets.
President-General of Ohaneze, Nnia Nwodo, in a statement yesterday in Enugu, said it was preposterous for the federal government to be carrying out unwarranted inquisition into Ekweremadu’s life.
Nwodo said the idea of asking the senator to defend himself instead of his accusers showing how he fraudulently enriched himself, amounted to turning the law upside down.
According to him, Ekweremadu is a revered Igbo son and had attracted a lot of development to his area without any previous accusation of embezzlement.
“Sen. Ekweremadu is a revered Igbo son whose public image is very high and who has attracted a lot of development to his area; he has never occupied any public office where he was accused of embezzlement,” he said.
The president-general queried the system of investigation where one was tried for simply belonging to a political party “and is exonerated of an offence he committed for belonging to a political party or being in government.
” He said some serving military officers had been let off the hook either through plea bargain or for just changing from one political party to another.
He observed that the cautionary statement by Ekweremadu had been and was still being echoed by many prominent Nigerians and wondered why his case would be different.
He said it was such selective justice and marginalisation of Ndigbo that fuelled agitations by their young ones for self-determination, adding that restructuring was a first step toward assuaging the situation.
(NAN).
