He will not fade in the blurred ink of politics nor does he intend to fizzle out in the dying flicker of his spent political era; all things being equal, Ibrahim Mantu intends to be in our faces for the long haul, masterminding theatrics and lending his voice to the affray of familiar candidates. Having attained notoriety via his failed bid to actualize former President, Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term bid, Mantu, a former deputy Senate President, gradually fizzled out from public consciousness and the political arena.
Following his failure with former President Obasanjo’s third term bid, he lent his weight to perpetuating late President Musa Yar’Adua in office despite the latter’s ill health and inability to continue in office as President; to this end, he formed the splinter Northern Elders Forum and championed the cause to perpetuate the late President Yar’Adua in office. In bid to curry favour from the late President Yar’Adua’s family, Mantu mobilized influential figures under his aegis and got them to throw their weight behind his propagandist scheme claiming the invalid president was actually hale and hearty enough to resume in office.
Under the banner of his unpopular Northern Elders Forum, Mantu allegedly collected several millions of Naira from the sister of the ailing President to organize a World press conference. He actually did at the Shehu Musa Yaradua centre Abuja in 2008 where he warned Nigerians, particularly Northerners not to permit Jonathan who was then the Vice President, VP, to the late Yar’Adua to assume office. Eventually, Mantu failed in his plot and he suffered for the ignoble role he played at election time; his constituency refused to retain him as their representative in the nation’s Senate and another candidate was voted in, in his place.
Today, Mantu is in the new again, his son, Umar married the daughter of the controversy prone former governor of Edo state, Lucky Igbinedion, Orobosa.
