Ex-Deputy Senate President, Mantu dies at 74

A former Deputy President of the Senate, Ibrahim Mantu, is dead.

Mantu was aged 74 years.

Family sources confirmed that Mr Mantu died on Tuesday at a private hospital in Abuja at midnight after a few days of admission.

The sources said the funeral prayer would hold later on Tuesday at Apo legislative mosque in Abuja.

The late Mr Mantu was born in Chanso village, Gindiri District, Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State on February 16, 1947. He attended the Gindiri Demonstration Primary School from 1955 – 1961 and obtained the First School Leaving Certificate.

Mr Mantu joined politics in 1978 and was elected Deputy State Chairman of NPN in Plateau State in 1980. He was a founding member of the Liberal Convention.

Mr Mantu’s contested for the National Chairmanship of the N.R.C. in 1990 but lost.

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In 1993, Mr Mantu was the Director-General of the National Republican Convention Presidential Campaign Organisation. In 1998, he was elected the National Publicity Secretary of the defunct UNCP and was later elected senator on the platform of the same party.

This election was truncated by General Abdusalam Abubakar’s regime. In 1999, Mr Mantu was re-elected in a fresh contest as senator representing Plateau Central district on the platform of the PDP.

On inauguration in 1999, Mr Mantu was appointed Chairman Senate Committee on Information, the position he held till August 10, 2001, when he was elected Deputy President of the Senate.

He was appointed Chairman, Joint National Assembly Constitution Review Committee from 2001 to 2003 and 2003 to 2007 respectively.

He was Chairman of Policy Analysis and Research Project (PARP) which metamorphosed into the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS). Though a legislator, Mr Mantu handled many executive assignments.

Despite opposition by some Muslim clerics, Mr Mantu was controversially appointed by President Obasanjo as Amirul Hajj twice (2005 and 2006) and Chairman Palliative Consolidated Committee for Cushioning Measures, the position he used to stop the planned “mother of all strikes” by the Nigeria Labour Congress.

Until his death, he was a member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) and National Executive Committee (NEC) of the PDP.