- Safiu Kehinde
The Minister of Works, Sen. Dave Umahi, has opened up on the death of one of her medical staff, Mary Habila, who died at his residence in Ebonyi state.
NPO Reported that Habila mysteriously passed away on the 27th of June at the residence of the minister in his hometown in Uburu, Ohaozara Local Government Area of the state.
The medical practitioner’s demise however came to public attention earlier this week and had since been subject of controversies with demands for Umahi’s resignation for keeping the incident secret and independent investigation over the death of Habila.
While the minister had disclosed ordering the conduct of autopsy on the deceased to unravel the circumstances that led to her death, the family of the late Habilah however opposed the conduct of the autopsy as they demanded the release of their daughter’s body for burial.
Breaking silence over the controversies surrounding the death in a press briefing held on Thursday evening, Umahi firstly clarified that the lady was a nurse and not her physiotherapist.
“One piece of information I want to correct is that the lady in question was like a daughter to me. She had stayed with me for three years.
“She was a staff member of the Federal Medical University. She was a nurse and not a physiotherapist. And her family and my family are like one family.”
“She has her medical records in Turkish Hospital, being paid by us. The last one was on the 5th of April, and it cost me N2.2 million. The records are there. I paid N2.2 million.” He said.
Umahi thereafter recounted the last conversation she had with her boyfriend before her death, disclosing that she had a bleeding nose.
“She spoke to her boyfriend at the hour of her death and complained that she was bleeding from the nose.
“The boyfriend said, ‘No, you have to report it.’ She said it had stopped. The boyfriend then said, ‘Listen, I will not continue this conversation since you are bleeding. It will increase the bleeding.’
“She told the boyfriend, ‘Don’t cut the call.’ The boyfriend cut the call. Three minutes later, the boyfriend called again. She was not responding.
“Even in the morning, she told the boyfriend that she was going to the bathroom and she locked her door. When then broke the door and discover her dead, The tap was still running.” The minister said.
Meanwhile, Umahi expressed his disappointment over the politicising of the lady’s death which he warned against.
“What baffles me in this country is that everything becomes an opportunity. There is a guest house where she and the second medical person stay.
“That is very far from where I stay. It means that, God forbid, somebody dies in the Ministry of Works, the minister must be accountable to that.
“Is that what they are saying? Are they saying somebody cannot die? Have they checked the medical records of the lady? Do they know that this lady was like a daughter to me?
“Everything goes to politics. But what I say to people is to be careful. Life i spiritual. When you want to use the unfortunate death of a young girl to play politics, if we have hands in the killing, it will follow us to our family.
“But if we don’t have hand and you are jumping into it, behold this is David. I’m a man of full grace.
“You don’t tackle me anyhow and go out of it. So, be careful when you want to use the death of the young lady.” He said.
Umahi described the lady as one his best workers as he expressed sadness over her demise.
He also reiterated the parents’ refusal to grant permission for an autopsy to be conducted on her.
“She is one of my best workers. Somebody said oh they were transported. The second girl is from Benue state. And that girl has worked with me as a governor before she was employed.
“It is very painful to me that the girl passed on. It is very difficult to replace her. We’ve been begging the parents to allow autopsy to happen. They said it is against their culture.
“But the question is that if she was a Muslim, will you be insisting that autopsy will happen? But we insisted through our lawyer to have one.
“But the parent said no, it is against their culture. So, we have a statement and only God will resolve it because we have directed that the corpse will not be removed until they have done autopsy.” Umahi said.