Problem/Bug Removing leading and trailing < and >

So me and my friend have decided to try to set up a factions server using bukkit. But we can't seem to remove the leading and trailing < and > when we add GroupManager, We want it for the permissions, but, it overrides the EssentialsChat and provides the < and >, so my question, how do I remove them from GroupManager? I can provide the configs and such upon request if needed.