An aide of the factional President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chief Lawson Obasi, said his boss had not arrested by the police.
Chinedu Ukadike said this while reacting to the picking up of Obasi by police on Tuesday in Abuja over alleged criminal charges against him.
He said the alleged charge against Obasi was phony because he was just invited by police over the crisis in IPMAN.
“Chief Chinedu Okoronkwo led IPMAN group was just trying to see what to hold on to since the Federal Government has recognised Lawson Obasi as the IPMAN President,” he said.
He said that Lawson was only invited by the police for interrogation and not arrested as being alleged by the Okoronkwo group.
When contacted, the FCT Police spokesperson, Anjuguri Manzah denied knowledge of the arrest but promised to verify from his men.
The Okoronkwo-led group had told newsmen in Abuja that Lawson was picked by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the FCT Police Command for alleged criminal offenses.
Okoronkwo said that Obasi was arrested on the charges preferred against him by the Director, Public Prosecutions of the Federation, M.S. Diri.
The association has been engulfed in a leadership crisis since last year when Obasi won a case he filed in a court in Port Harcourt against the board of trustees of the association.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.