Chinedu Ukadike, the Chief of Staff to a factional President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chief Lawson Obasi, said his boss was not arrested by the police.
Ukadike was 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.
He said: “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 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, Deputy Superintendent Anjuguri Manzah, denied knowledge of the arrest but promised to verify.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Okoronkwo-led group had told newsmen in Abuja that Lawson was picked by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the FCT Police Command for alleged criminal offences.
Okoronkwo said 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.
NAN.
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