31 May 2015, Abuja – The legal tussle over the leadership of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN) has taken a turn for the worse as the Chief Chinedu Okoronkwo-led Executive Committee of the association has expelled Chief Obasi Lawson for allegedly engaging in acts that violated the association’s constitution.
IPMAN’s national president, Okoronkwo, at a briefing in Abuja, faulted a letter purportedly written by former Minister of Labour and Productivity, Sen. Joel Ikenya, announcing Lawson as IPMAN’s national president.
He said that the action of the former minister was based on patent falsehood.
He said that Lawson had been expelled from the association because of his “anti-IPMAN activities which include breach of trust, such as adulteration of petroleum products for supply to unsuspecting clients as well as associating with undesirable elements of the society”.
IPMAN, he said, was a duly registered association of corporate organisations working together for common purpose of promoting a stress-free access of Nigerians to petroleum products in every part of the country.
In a letter dated 26th May, 2015, addressed to the Minister of Labour and Productivity, counsel to IPMAN and its executive, Ricky Tarfa (SAN), said the content of the former minister’s letter was tantamount to abuse of court process and contempt of court, as the dispute in respect IPMAN’s leadership crisis was the subject of litigation, upon which an appeal was pending before the Port-Harcourt division of the Court of Appeal.
“It is trite to state that president and committee allegedly set up by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, never deliberated on the said crisis, as claimed by the former minister’s letter purports to convey that president has endorsed Chief Obasi Lawson as IPMAN’s national president”, Tarfa said in the letter.
– This Day
