The Dele Abiodun faction of the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria is set to take on PMAN lawyer, Fred Agbaje, and the Preddy Wise faction of the association
It seems that the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria is crisis-prone. Just as stakeholders are trying to come to terms with the fact that some younger artistes led by El Dee are threatening to come up with an organisation that will protect their interest, a factional president of the association, Dele Abiodun, is set for collision with PMAN lawyer, Fred Agbaje, and a newly-inaugurated factional president, Preddy Wise.
Abiodun’s faction claims that the Lagos-based lawyer was paid N4m to make him support Wise’s camp.
Wise was sworn-in in Lagos at the Fred Agbaje Chambers after a faction of the PMAN NEC declared the election held in Osogbo, Osun State, which returned Abiodun as the PMAN president, null and void.
However, Abiodun claims he is still the PMAN president and doesn’t recognise or accept the new faction.
He told Life and Beat that he was going to ‘expose’ Agbaje.
“We will tell the whole world what has happened. He will not do anything for free. That was why Charley Boy refused to work with him as PMAN’s lawyer. We have always carried him along in whatever we are doing as the legal adviser of PMAN,” he says.
Reacting to the allegation, Wise, who claimed he sponsored the Uyo election that brought Abiodun into power, said he never paid any money to Agbaje. He said Abiodun should face reality and join hands with him to make the union a success.
“You must understand that he is a father,” says Wise. “The Osogbo election was declared illegal by the NEC. The election wasn’t recognised by the NEC. I’m not worried by Abiodun not recognising me as the PMAN president. He doesn’t have a choice. He has to embrace whatever the union decides to make this union work.
“If I had N4m, I’d pay it into the PMAN account. I’m going into an office that has zero account. I’ve debts to pay. I would rather use the money to offset the debt than to give it to the lawyer. Anybody is open to their opinion. Whoever the lawyer swears in is the rightful president. Agbaje is a legal man. He goes by the book as he knows what is right. He would have stood behind Abiodun if his election was legal. I’m not worried about what he said. I’ve followed due process and it is even the lawyer that is swearing me in. That makes it authentic.”
According to Wise, he has what it takes to take the union forward.
“Look at me; I think I’m young and vibrant. This is the first time a young man will be given a chance. I’m a successful businessman and I’m also an artiste. The only reason I diverted into business was that the industry has not worked. There is going to be sanity in the union; it has been a long time since we had such. We will have to re-unite with the younger artistes. You can’t blame them that they are not a part of this. The union has not been encouraging. When they see the sanity, it will give them the urge to come back,” he says.
When Life and Beat called Agbaje on the phone to get his side of the story, he chose to forward, through emails, letters he wrote to Idowu Blessing (factional secretary of PMAN), who is in Abiodun’s camp.
Part of the letter reads, “You maliciously accuse (me) of taking money from Preddy Wise/Emma Ogosi to swear them in. Are you sure of your facts or are you embarking on deliberate mischief with its attendant consequences for libel? We would not have replied your frivolous letter, but we have decided to reply same to put PMAN under proper prospective.
“Very soon, we shall call on PMAN’s authentic NEC and the police, to recover all the PMAN fund you criminally embezzled. The unlawful activities and embezzlement going on in PMAN is what you think everybody is involved in or you think we don’t have the records of the various embezzlement cascading the entire PMAN secretariat landscape?
“If therefore, any person can be heard to make any allegation at all, it should never come from your likes and others in PMAN’s secretariat.”
