Chairman of the The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Disciplinary Committee, High Chief Tom Ikimi on Wednesday said the committee has no intention to invite former Vice President Atiku abubakar or FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike unless there are petitions against them.
Flanked by 10 committee members, the Committee Secretary, Chief Eyitayo Jegede Hon Patrick Ifo and two Ex-Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau (Kano) and Sam Egwu (Ebonyi) while responding to reporters’ questions at Legacy House in Abuja on Wednesday on why his committee felt compelled to defer its hearing by about two weeks, Ikimi who also explained that the Committee’s review was not time-bound and petitioners may ask for it to look into matters dating back to 2015.
“Whether acts were committed against the party in 2015, 2019, 2020 or any other year, we can do nothing about them except there are petitions sent to this committee’ this committee does not write petitions, we only attend to petitions that are sent to us.
“So, if there’s no petition against somebody, we are not going to do anything about it because that is not our business; I’m not out here to write petitions or deal with what is seen in newspapers,” Ikimi said.
Hinting that former Benue Governor, Samuel Ortom may not be telling the truth, Ikimi asserted that his Committee has confirmed that contrary to claims by Ortom and others, the petitions against them were delivered with invitations for them to appear before the PDP Disciplinary Committee on Wednesday.
“Last week Wednesday we went through the various petitions before us and two petitions were slated for hearing today; one petition was against the National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu and the other against some members of the party from Benue state, including former governor of Benue State, Dr. Samuel Ortom and ten others”.
“We were prepared to hear the petition today; the petitions were served on them directly and through courier and we have evidence that the petitions s arrived at their destinations, however, we could not proceed today due to correspondences received from these two persons we were supposed to meet”.
“Former Secretary, Senator Anyanwu sent us a letter indicating that he was not well and that he had medical challenges, and a medical appointment for today; he backed that up with a letter from his hospital and his doctor ; so, he therefore asked for another date.
“In the case of Samuel Ortom and others, they claimed that they had not received the petitions which were sent to them but the petitions were sent and we have evidence that they were sent to them.
“However, the committee has met and because we believe that we should give everyone fair hearing and that we should not ignore issues like health challenges, we have decided to the defer the hearing by another two to three weeks so that they will assure that they received the petitions sent to them.
“So, we have deferred the hearing to 4th of March; we believe that all will be well and the Committee is going to be fair to everyone.”