Mantu, who was said to have met with President Olusegun Obasanjo, was said to have blown the issue out of proportion as the incident did not pose any threat to him. Mantu visited Aso Rock Villa early Tuesday in company of a senator from the North West.

Besides the issue of dragging the name of the Vice President into the matter, the discussion during the short visit also centred on how the opposition senators working for Mantu’s impeachment could be calmed down.

A source said that at another meeting on Monday night. chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had concluded plans to save Mantu from impeachment.

It was gathered that besides the meeting held with the leadership of the Senate at the National Assembly on Monday by the leaders of the PDP, another meeting at the instance of the leadership of the party which also had the deputy national chairman of the party, Chief Olabode George, in attendance, agreed to save Mantu of the impeachment imbroglio.

But another source said that the opposition senators had garnered 76 signatures on Monday, they needed only 74 to remove him. Meanwhile, youths from the Middle Belt have thrown their weight behind Senator Ibrahim Nasiru Mantu and accused the core North of being at the vanguard of the campaign to impeach the deputy senate president.

The youths, who met under the aegis of the Middle Belt Youth Organisation (MBYO), said at a press conference in Kaduna on Tuesday that the way the aggrieved legislators were going about their move and the calibre of the person targeted was quite disturbing as their parliament had a history of removal of principal officials.

National President of the MBYO, Mr. Victor Dio Anawo, said most of the principal officials removed in the past were “victims of selfish, parochial, eccentric and sectional politicians in the National Assembly.”