The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has dismissed report that the Association accused security agencies of being responsible for the current hike in pump price of petrol in the country.
This was made known in a statement by the National President of the Association Elder Chinedu Okoronkwo. According to him, he said that at no time did he or any member of the Associations National Executive Committee, NEC, make such claim when they appeared at the House of Representatives Public Hearing on Tuesday.
In the statement titled: House Committee Public Hearing With IPMAN : Setting The Records Straight Against Mischievous Faceless Online Reportage, Okoronkwo said, the National Executive Committee { NEC } of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria {IPMAN}, has observed with total dismay, a very misleading and fabricated report, purportedly credited to him.
He described the report with headline, “DSS, POLICE RESPONSIBLE FOR HIKE IN FUEL PRICE” and published by an online platform as highly malicious and unstructured false report, captioned,
He said, the faceless online reporter , whose major motive by simple deduction is nothing other than to stoke the embers of social relational crisis, cause disaffection and sew seeds of ill-will between the leadership of IPMAN and these frontline security agencies , is no doubt a paid agent recruited to do a hatchet job.
“During the House of Representatives Public Hearing , held on Tuesday, August 1, 2023 , at no time did either the National President of IPMAN or any NEC member , express or espouse such a view.” Okoronkwo said.
He further described the report as a well orchestrated act of wickedness, designed for purely self-serving reasons to paint the noble association in a negative light.
“On our part as a responsible and law-abiding association, we will get to the root of this satanic write – up and tract the authors.
“For purposes of cogent and verifiable evidence, any member of the general public as well as the two top- notch security agencies, can fact-check from members of the House of Representatives Press Corps,. who covered the event.
“The calibre of responsible print and broadcast journalists, including few online media establishments , who officially covered the event, can collaborate IPMAN’s statement of fact.
“This would equally confirm the fact that at no time did the National President of IPMAN nor any other Executive of IPMAN make such a misleading statement, as falsely crafted and put out in a rag-tagged online publication, just to cause disaffection between our noble association and the two sister federal government security agencies,” he stated.
In trying to set the record straight Okoronkwo recalled he only proffered solutions to the animated social problems of pump price increase of petroleum products, and that the only way out is for the Federal Government to quickly adopt the global alternative clean energy concept of Compressed National Gas, commonly called the {CNG}, which he said would help in powering homes, public , official and private establishments with very minimal costs, when compared with other petroleum products.
Okoronkwo, further cautioned other faceless and wicked mischief makers against embarking such campaign of calumny and urged the Department Of State Services, [DSS] , Nigeria Police Force and all well meaning Nigerians, to discountenance the wicked and evil-premised machinations of this ghost writer .