The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has threatened to stop petroleum products supplies to Ogun State over the continuous intimidation of “a Task Force” reportedly set up by the state government to disrupt its members’ businesses statewide.
The new IPMAN state chairman in Mosimi Depot, Chief Salimon Ajayi, stated this in Abeokuta, the state capital, while speaking with journalists about the state of IPMAN’s businesses nationwide, particularly the continued harassment of their staff statewide.
Ajayi explained that the Prince Dapo Abiodun-led administration in the state inaugurated a task force on November 6, 2024. The task Force has been going around his members’ fuelling stations to demand measuring cans and monetary inducements, in addition to a series of harassments of IPMAN personnel across Ogun.
Ajayi maintained that the inauguration of the Task Force, which has one Adeyemi Badejo as its chairman, the operatives of the Nigeria Police Force, personnel of the state-owned Traffic Compliance and Enforcement agency (TRACE), and the state-owned television broadcast station, contradicted the provisions of the law as contained in Sections 48 and 309 of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
IPMAN emphatically stated that its members would shut down the state with effect from Monday, November 18, 2024, should the Ogun State government’s Task Force “continue going out to disturb our members, and no petroleum products-laden trucks will be allowed to come to Ogun State.”
“Unfortunately, lPMAN members are always the target when the government’s policies hurt the public. I think that the task force is unnecessary and illegal. Sections 48 and 309 of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 forbid the setting up such a task force”.
“What the Ogun state government intends to achieve is being illegally approached and must be vehemently resisted”.
“We bring to your attention all these fraudulent acts that the Task Force is perpetrating in all our fuelling dispensing stations across the state. All our members are law-abiding citizens who carry out their legitimate businesses by the law guiding them.”
Ajayi, however, appealed to residents and members of the Ogun State business community to hold the state government accountable for any inconveniences that may be experienced should the state governor, Abiodun, fail to disband the Task Force between now and the night of Sunday, the 17th November 2024.
