From Iheanacho Nwosu, Abuja
The South-East Caucus of the House of Representatives, yesterday, called on the Federal Government to stop what it described as “serial onslaught against the person and office of the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, in particular and the South-East in general.”
This was even as the group called on well-meaning northern elders, federal legislators and the international community to rise up in the defence of the country’s democracy, saying, as a group, “it would do everything lawful and within its powers to ensure that the only substantive position occupied by the South-East in this administration through the support of Senators from all parts of the country, was protected.”
In a statement signed by Chukwuka Onyema, who is the leader of the caucus and doubles as the House deputy minority leader, a copy of which was made available to newsmen at the National Assembly, the group said it viewed the current move to prosecute Ekweremadu as political witch-hunt aimed at shutting out the Igbo from the top level of the government. It further said: “There is currently no one of South East origin in President Buhari’s ‘kitchen cabinet,” and in the distribution of other appointments such as ministerial appointments.
leaves no one in doubt that this government has an incurable hatred for Ndigbo.
“From what we have read from the papers and other media outlets, the charges being preferred against Senator Ike Ekweremadu in particular and others in general are charges that cannot be sustained in a competent court of law.
“This, no doubt, leaves us with the strong impression that the Federal Government and its agents within the APC are hell-bent on removing Senator Ekweremadu and thereby shutting out the South East from the substantive positions of the Federal Government at all cost.
“If anything, this All Progressives Congress administration should apply the raw political will and brutal tendencies of its security agencies towards ridding the region of marauding herdsmen who kill, rape, rob and maim with impunity and still get away with it.
“We warn this government to stop this divisiveness, marginalisation, exclusion and palpable hatred for the good people of the South East. Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution is clear on the fact that a citizen of Nigeria shall not be discriminated against on grounds of ethnicity, places of origin, sex, religion, and political opinions.”
While calling for the arrest of the trial, without any further delay, the South East lawmakers again said: “We demand that the Federal Government should stop forthwith all plots to unseat the deputy president of the Senate and all treatments that present the people of South East as lesser Nigerians. Therefore, the people of the South East, being part of this country, are entitled to the blessings of democracy, their political affiliation and voting patterns notwithstanding.”