The pan-Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo says it will resist any attempt to bring the name and personality of the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu to disrepute.

In a statement issued in Enugu on Thursday, President -General of the group, Chief Nnia Nwodo said it was preposterous for the Federal Government to be carrying out unwarranted inquiries into Ekweremadu’s life.

He said the allegation that Senator Ekweremadu, the highest ranking south-eastern politician in the country embezzled public funds without any prima facie case was inappropriate and unacceptable.

Chief Nwodo added that the idea of asking the senator to defend the allegations leveled against him instead of his accusers bringing evidence of how he fraudulently enriched himself amounted to turning the law upside down.

He observed that Ekweremadu was a respected Igbo politician who had attracted a lot of development and investments in the south-eastern region without any previous accusation of embezzlement and queried the system of investigation where one was tried for simply belonging to an opposition political party.

“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,” Nwodo said.

The President -General cited examples of former and serving military officers who had been let off the hook either through plea bargain or for just switching allegiance from one political party to another.

He also said that a former governor of Enugu State whose property was being investigated for corruption was now dining with the President after dumping his former party for the ruling party.

Nwodo warned that Ohanaeze Ndigbo would no longer fold its arms and watch notable Igbo sons and daughters being systematically singled out for persecution in a country they had contributed so much to build.

He noted that it was such selective justice and marginalization of Ndigbo that fuelled agitations by the young ones for self-determination, stressing that restructuring was the first step towards addressing the situation.