Ibrahim Mantu, ex-deputy senate president, is dead

Ibrahim Mantu, the former deputy president of the senate, is dead.

Mantu reportedly died in the early hours of Tuesday.

He is said to have been sick for days and died in isolation at a private hospital in the federal capital territory (FCT).

The former lawmaker is expected to be laid to rest later today in Abuja.

Mantu was elected as the senator representing Plateau central on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999.

He was elected deputy president of the senate in August 2001.

Mantu was bom on Februay 16, 1947.

In his autobiography released in 2020, Orji Kalu, former Abia governor, said Mantu was the true hero in the efforts to stop the third term agenda of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006.

The bill to amend the 1999 constitution and extend the presidential term limit by another four years had failed to pass at the national assembly.

According to the ex-Abia governor, Mantu, then-chairman of the senate constitution review committee, worked against the agenda behind the scene.

“Mantu was the one who scuttled the third term, and in doing so, he incurred Obasanjo’s eternal hatred. So Nigerians should celebrate him,” Kalu had said.