Mantu Is Behind Most Of Jos Crises –Former ADC
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By Michael Oche, Abuja; and Achor Abimaje, Jos
March 8th, 2009
Did former deputy Senate president Ibrahim Mantu have a hand in the several crises that rocked Jos, the Plateau State capital? His former aide de camp (ADC), Abubakar Abdulahi has accused his former boss of having masterminded most of the crises that claimed hundreds of lives.

"When he discovered that he was politically irrelevant, he decided to create chaos," Abdullahi said in an exclusive interview with Leadership Sunday.

According to Abdullahi, who worked for Mantu as ADC for seven years, the ex-deputy Senate president was behind most of the crises in an attempt to unsettle and then unseat the Plateau State governor, Jonah Jang.

Abdullahi's revelation will come as a shocker to panels set up by both the federal government and the state government to look into the recent Jos crisis.

"I was his ADC. You must agree with what I am telling you; it is the truth. In all telephone conversations he had, he used my phone. I would call and give him the phone and would stand by the side listening to everything," he stated.

The former ADC did not spare words with which he described his former boss: "chameleon, greedy, terrible human being, a destroyer' who does not have the good of the people of the state at heart."

He also accused Mantu of being an election-rigging expert who specialises in money politics. "Let me say, Mantu has never won an election. He specialised in rigging and money politics."

He went on to accuse Mantu of looting the federal treasury when he served as Amiru hajj and during the COJA games.

He said: "Senator Mantu was made Amiru hajj in 2007. That exercise is the worst hajj performed so far in the history of this country. Senator Mantu is a very greedy person; he is not somebody to be trusted

"He was given Amiru hajj 2006 and 2007. Senator Mantu embezzled a lot of money in the process. In fact, he connived with staff of the DPA then. You need to see what they were bringing: Ghana-must-go which contained millions of dollars. We were the people taking those things to their rooms."

He said many people were shocked they could not perform that year's hajj and died as a result.

He added: "During COJA when Amos Adamu released N600 million to Senator Mantu, it was in the midnight that I was asked to go out and collect that money."

However, reacting to the development, the media aide to the former deputy Senate president and secretary, Emmanuel Magni, and one of the Peoples Democratic Party Exco members in the state, Sylvanus Mamang, said what is happening in the state is a mass movement.

They accused Governor Jang of refusing to carry everybody along, which has made the party in the state become the personal property of the governor.

"The mass movement involves those who contested primaries and Senator VK Dangi and Chief Botmang Tapgun.

"When they talk about Mantu they want to give religious colouration. If Mantu had not done what he has done, AC would have carried the day," they charged.

And this is one of the people regarded as one of the leaders in this country?What a shame!!