Opinion
By Chijoke Odom
BRASH and bickering, boisterous and belligerent! Vicious and volatile, vociferous and voluble! These epitomize Dave Umahi’s character in public and private since he assumed office as President Bola Tinubu’s federal minister for works and housing.
Since DNA’s could never be hidden, eroded, or camouflaged, Umahi’s content and colour, having erupted consistently before this hour, are now on the upsurge to delete his existence. Literally, with a ferocity of the speed of Hawaii’s Kilauea and Sicily’s Etna – the world’s most eruptive volcanoes,- the hot stalagmites and silicates unearthed are piling around him with speed as smudge from an earth tremor.
Mary Habila and Mary Basti, two young, pretty ladies from Kaduna state who spent the night (or nights? ) in his palatial residence at Uburu in Ohaozara local government area of Ebonyi state, have become his latest albatross. Habila was discovered dead in her room in the minister’s residence, while Basti( presumed alive) had varnished into thin air without any word whatsoever till this hour.
Nigerians lived in their wasteful “siddon look” somnolence, until an online newspaper, The Cable jolted them with the news two weeks ago.
For a tragedy of such magnitude that occurred on the morning of June. 26, 2026, the Nigerian Police has remained both criminally and negligently atrophied till this hour.
Apart from the press conference called by the drowning Umahi just yesterday in which he admitted the lady’s demise, no information had been forthcoming from any other quarters on what actually happened in his house
that led to Mary’s death.Umahi had said in his press encounter that it was his family members who forced the deceased room door open on the morning of June 26th and rushed the body to the hospital ( Dave Umahi Federal University Teaching Hospital) , Abakiliki, wherein she was certified dead. Mary’s father had also gone to court to depose to an affidavit that he does not want any autopsy on.the deceased and that he also does not want to be called to say anything to anybody. All these, for reasons known best to him and of which nobody can second guess the reasons.
Umahi had claimed that Mary had spoken with her boyfriend the previous night informing him that she had some nose- bleeding to contend with. Umahi also claimed that he was shattered because he took the late Mary as his daughter.
Other things he said include that the late Mary was a physiotherapist nurse who was assigned to the Dave Umahi Federal University Teaching Hospiital (DUFUTH) in Abakiliki and then seconded to the ministry of works and housing.
Till now, the twirling controversy over Mary’s death, instead of dying, is rather, building a firestorm with enraged citizens from north to south. Ritual, accident? Natural death? Death by happenstance? Sickness induced death? Bunt force death? Or others?No one knows. And none can hazard a guess or probability!
Everything about this incident, like the other side of Julius Ceasar’s wife’s face, is buried deeply in the bank of vapours!
In criminal justice procedure and processing worldwide, the citizen in whose house the dead is found automatically becomes the chief suspect and is taken in for interogation and detention. Same occurs in the life of any person/persons in whose property custody of criminal items are either found or crime was committed. Nigeria , in this matter concerning Mary Habila, had stood that eternal mechanism on its head! And with the chief suspect now speaking and addressing the press to press his innocence, instead of the police whose job it is, it means that justice is dead and had long ago been buried.
Celebrities own Nigeria, rule Nigeria and ruin Nigeria. They set the policies, dictate the procedures, monitor the processes, co-ordinate the programmes and implement the projects. The citizens, the hoi- polloi, the hewers of wood and fetchers of water, are sentenced to ho-hum through hoick, hogwash and humdrum. Severly marooned to a life in the denizens of dungeons and dragons, they labour and die unmourned and unsung.When two different or more rules apply to same citizens of same society, then frivoloty frizzies the eternal order and makes nonsense the objective principles and directives of state policy. Why then would there not citizens violence against state institutions, as obtains in our country?
In other climes, incident as the one under consideration calls for not just autopsy but forensic autopsy to unveil the cause of death. Not in Nigeria!
To unveil the trajectory of the death of Mary Habila, an independent forensic autopsy must be commissioned to pry into the following posers:
1. What was Mary Habila doing in minister Dave Umahi’s home , and how did she get there in the first instance?
2. Who or which persons were with her at the time she died?
3. As for Umahi himself, where exactly was he prior to, during, and after the incident?
4. How exactly did she die?. An accurate description of her death hour must be uncovered.
5. At what time exactly was her death reported to the police and who received the report?
6. Why did it take two weeks or more to announce the death and why was it by the police?
7. Was there a plan or plot, and by who or whom, to cover up this unfortunate tragedy?
Even as the body is being concluded and arranged to be interred by the Deeper Life Bible Church in Nok, Jaba local government area of Kaduna State, there is absolutely no need to rush to do so. Granted and guaranteed that forensic pathology could still be done by exhuming a long buried cadaver, but in Nigeria, anyone who does not strike while the iron is hot forever lives to regret it. Once the body is covered with sand, the occult rulers of Nigeria will march on to another ignoble destination, and very soonest too. The truth and reality of the previous happenstance remains buried with it in the sand.
Let therefore civil society crusaders and advocates arise in their duty of preserving the shattered remains of human rights in Nigeria, for a society that would rise from barbarity to another step on the ladder of civilization must continously water the tree of liberty with the blood of the tyrant, tyrants and tyranny. Especially, as regards the issue under consideration, women rights groups must heat up the civil and political space, insisting on nothing but that justice be done and be seen to be manifestly done. That was how enticing democracies were built, sustained and beautified to become the cynosure of all eyes. Indeed, the cruise control of a just, equitable, and democratic society.
A.I
July 20, 2026
Tags: Dave Umahi