Former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu Is Dead

By Akinwale Kasali

Ibrahim Nasiru Mantu, the former Deputy Senate President, who represented Plateau Central Senatorial District at the Red Chamber, is dead. He died in the early hours of Tuesday 17th August, 2021.

The cause of the death of the late Senator was not disclosed.

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.

He worked with the Public Works Department (PWD) Jos, as a Stores Requisition Clerk from 1962 – 1963 before proceeding to the Gindiri Teachers College in 1964. On leaving Gindiri in 1967, he joined the Nigerian Tobacco Company Zaria in 1968 as a Quality Checker. He moved to BEAM, a Division of UAC Nigeria as a Kalamazoo Specialist Salesman in 1971.

Mantu studied on his own to obtain O’ level GCE and Diploma in Professional Salesmanship which facilitated his movement to John Holt Ltd. in 1973 as a Trainee-Manager. He was later confirmed as a substantive Manager. In 1976 Mantu became the General Manager of John Holt Ltd. Maiduguri Venture.

In 1977 he was promoted and transferred to Lagos as Deputy General Manager, Building Materials Division, John Holt Ltd. He resigned in mid 1977 to join Plateau State Supply Company Ltd. as its first Commercial Manager.

Mantu holds a B.A. (Hons.) degree in Political Science from the Washington International University. He was awarded Honourary Doctorate Degrees of Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, University of Jos, Madonna University, Okija and University of Applied Sciences and Management Port Novo, Benin Republic.

Senator Mantu joined politics in 1978. He was elected Deputy State Chairman of NPN in Plateau State in 1980.

He was a founding member of the Liberal Convention. Mantu’s overwhelming popularity saw him contesting the National Chairmanship of the N.R.C. in 1990 but was edged out in a surreptitious power play. In 1993, Mantu was the Director General of 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.

The election was truncated by the Military regime. In 1999, Mantu was re-elected in a fresh contest as Senator representing Plateau Central Senatorial district on the platform of the PDP.