The Mantu in Plateau...
By Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja
Once upon a time, the then "ordinary" Senator Ibrahim Mantu lived in Apo Legislative Quarters. Under the late Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo, he was the senate committee chairman on information. Before then, he was touted to be the one who would have been chosen to be the Deputy Senate President but for the financial bulwark that his predecessor, Senator Haruna Abubakar represented he could not make it.
He was very friendly and respected the media so much. In fact, it was Mantu who received the President of the Nigerian Union of Journalist, Mr. Smart Adeyemi at the National Assembly when the recently passed freedom of information bill was presented to the senate. He said things like "without the vibrant Nigerian media, this democracy would have been a pipe dream". "Democracy would not thrive without the press", and stuff like that.
When he was running around in Apo like his colleagues at the lower level, he once told this writer of how the former Works and Housing minister and present chairman of the all Powerful Peoples Democratic Party Board of Trustees threatened to deal with him for refusing to collect "impeachment money" when there were moves to remove Okadigbo. Remember that he was a core Okadigbo loyalist. Sometime last year, when the able Deputy Senate President recieved a doctorate degree (Honoris Causa) from the University of Agriculture, Markurdi with the likes of the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Dr Mohammed Abba-Gana, he was praised to high heavens for having contributed to the advancement of humanity though I did not quite understand what the egg head who was reading his citation said about his trying so hard to gain admission into college but for strange reasons, could not make it thereby joining the United African Company (UAC).
What a credible Nigerian! Then he savoured media attention so much. Nice, ever smiling guy!
Now, take this: "In 1999, the newspapers did not give President Olusegun Obasanjo a chance but he won the election. The same thing in 2003. In the United States of America, newspapers do their research scientifically but in Nigeria, they are sponsored"!
Why this volte face? Why is the revered Deputy Senate President fighting the media?
But has he ever sponsored any journalist from his statement? Is he angry over the negative publicity that has trailed him of late. For instance, is it the fault of the Nigerian media that the INEC there announced that he did not win election which was allegedly manipulated in his favour later.
Did the media tell one retired airforce officer to shout blue murder that he (Mantu has schemed him and his colleagues out of a company they helped set up? How does it concern the media if El-Rufai said he and one other senator demanded N54 million to fix his ministerial nomination. Did the media say that as a muslim, he should not swear by the Koran like El-Rufai but prefered affirmation, which is still acceptable though?
Did the press fly the rumour and in fact statements from some middlebelt youths that he fought for a declaration of a state of emergency in Plateau over the refusal of suspended Governor Dariye to give him three local government chairmen in the state in addition to three or four commissioners in his cabinet which the Governor was said not to be disposed to? Did we tell some groups to say that he is forming a parallel PDP in Plateau after the emergency declaration? What is the business of the media with all these. Let him name the journalists he sponsored before and now. With all due respect, what's wrong with Mantu in Plateau?
Crisis in Plateau
Mantu is happy with the return of peace in his home state but rechoes Obasanjo's statement during his recent visit to Jos that the future of the state would be decided by the people of the state."The attitudes, reactions and collective decisions of the people of the state would determine the return of democratic structures to the state."
On the return of Jonah Jang, the ANPP gubernatorial candidate in the last elections in the state, he argued that Jang was first and foremost a pioneer PDP member and saw nothing strange in his return.
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