The federal government and the Inspector General of Police have waged into a land dispute problem that has been wracking The Performing Musicians Employers’ Association of Nigeria (PMAN) for years.
In a letter dated April 25 2016 addressed to the Inspector General of Police and copied President Mohammadu Buhari and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation and signed by Pretty Okafor and Dr Kenny George, PMAN President and General Secretary respectively, PMAN decried the lingering crisis and called for urgent intervention from the appropriate authorities.
The letter with the heading “MONUMENTAL FRAUD, STEALING, FORGERY AND CRIMINAL CONVERSION OF PMAN LANDED PROPERRTY IN ABUJA AGAINST MR TEE MAC AND HIS COHORTS” states that:
1. The Performing Musicians Employers’ Association of Nigeria otherwise known as PMAN as registered under the Trade Union’s Act of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was allocated a parcel of land measuring more than 8 hectares for the purpose of developing a modern day music and entertainment complex in Abuja by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1992 and thereafter, reallocated between 1999 and 2003. While arrangements were being made to develop the place in accordance with the original plan, Mr. Tee Mac Omatshola Itseli in 2010, clandestinely went to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and registered ‘Performing Musician Association of Nigeria’ – using the same acronym (PMAN), with which he deceived the FCT authorities that granted him a certificate of occupancy of the said land.
2. The Trade Unions Act, section 20 and as amended makes it a criminal offence for anybody or group of persons to register an Association or Union similar to an existing one.
3. Mr. Tee Mac Omatshola Itseli was neither an officer nor an official of PMAN as at 2010 when he did all these things.
4. Since dubiously acquiring the said land, Mr. Tee Mac Omatshola Itseli has never allowed peace to reign in PMAN as he keeps sponsoring one form of crisis or the other, amongst other things.
Meanwhile the Inspector General of Police Mr. Solomon Arase has set up a high powered investigation into the matter, by inviting all those involved in the issue to come and say what they know.
With this development, it is hoped that the union and the industry will soon heave a sigh of relief as the cause of the perennial crisis of the union will soon be over.
