By Seyi Babalola
Former Deputy Senate President Senator Ibrahim Mantu is dead. He is aged 74.
Mantu a very flambouyant politician and member Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) died at about 2am this morning.
Mantu who was the Deputy Senate President between 2001 and 2003 is said to have died of COVID-19 complications.
The late former deputy Senate President will be buried at 2pm today.
SUNRISE NEWS gathered that the former legislator, took ill nine days ago and had been receiving treatment at home before he had to be rushed to the hospital when there was no improvement.
He died at the Diff Hospital in Abuja where he has been in isolation, a family source further disclosed.
Mantu, who hailed from Gindiri, in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State, was an influential political figure in Nigeria for several years.
Born on February 16, 1947, the late politician began his political career with the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
During the aborted Third Republic, he vied for the Chairmanship of the National Republican Convention (NRC), one of the two registered political parties. During the Late General Sani Abacha transition programme, Mantu was a chieftain of the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP).
In the build up to the present democratic dispensation, Mantu joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on which platform he won election to represent Plateau Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly in 1999. He served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information before emerging as the Deputy Senate President in 2001.