The family of the late Mary Habila has petitioned the Inspector General of Police for the release of her remains for burial, firmly opposing calls for an autopsy, even as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and allies of Minister of Works David Umahi trade accusations over how her death and that of another Nigerian, Dolapo Tanimola, have been handled.
Habila’s father, Tanko Habila, accompanied by his wife, other relatives and lawyers, delivered the petition to the Force Headquarters in Abuja before telling journalists the family simply wants her body released for a proper burial. As we are standing here, somebody can fall and die, it has happened, all we want is her body to be buried, he said, I am demanding the corpse of my daughter to go and bury her now, we don’t want that autopsy that they are talking about, and I am not suspecting anybody because death can occur, even as we are standing here, one can fall here now and die. Mary, a nurse, died on June 27, 2026 at a residence belonging to Umahi in Uburu, Ohaozara local government area of Ebonyi State, and her family had been unable to bury her for nearly two weeks due to continued retention of her remains. Family lawyer Kaile Adamu Yusuf said the decision to oppose an autopsy rests on cultural and religious grounds, and disputed reports describing Mary as a physiotherapist, clarifying she was a nurse employed by David Umahi Federal University of Medical Sciences in Uburu before being seconded to the minister’s office, where she had worked for about three years. It is regrettable that, having followed all the necessary procedures required by the Nigerian Police in Ebonyi State to retrieve the body and give her a befitting burial, her remains are yet to be released to the family, Yusuf said, alleging attempts to exploit the circumstances of her death for political purposes and insisting the family does not want her turned into a subject of political controversy. Mary’s colleague Anita Baaki, who described the death as shocking and painful, disputed claims that she and Mary had recently been brought in to work for the minister, saying both had worked under him for about three years, with Mary as a nurse and Baaki as the physiotherapist.
Umahi’s lawyers, meanwhile, have formally requested that an autopsy be conducted before any release of Mary’s remains, urging the Nigeria Police Force to ensure a comprehensive autopsy by qualified forensic pathologists to establish the cause and circumstances of her death, arguing the request serves justice, transparency and proper criminal administration, and that the remains should not be released until the autopsy and other investigative procedures conclude, since doing so would preserve the investigation’s integrity, eliminate speculation and settle the circumstances of her death before burial. A legislative aide to Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin, Emmanuel Igwe, condemned Atiku’s earlier call for Umahi’s suspension over the incident as putting the cart before the horse, warning against politicising the death of the 26 year old nurse and rejecting the suspension call as premature, politically motivated and inconsistent with justice, fairness and due process. The press statement by the former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on the unfortunate death of Miss Mary Habila and the overt political maneuvers by major opposition figures in the Nigeria polity to indict the Honourable Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, even before the conclusion of the ongoing investigation is a typical example of putting the cart before the horse, Igwe said, the rule of law requires that investigations precede judgements, evidence precede accusations, and due process prevail over public speculation, urging stakeholders, political leaders, civil society and the media to avoid prejudicial statements while investigations remain ongoing.
Atiku, for his part, insisted both deaths require full criminal investigation and coroner’s inquests, arguing in a post shared by media aide Paul Ibe that authorities failed their legal duty to investigate the circumstances surrounding both deaths, Mary’s at Umahi’s Uburu residence and Tanimola’s, an alleged intermediary in the PFIPC scandal, at Kachi Hotel in Utako, Abuja. Under our law, the government is obligated to treat suspicious, sudden, or unnatural deaths as crimes against the state, he said, the expectations are that the Nigeria Police Force would have conducted a full criminal investigation and launched a Coroner’s Inquest to establish the medical cause and manner of deaths of Habila and Dolapo, arguing authorities were expected to secure both scenes, preserve forensic evidence and question relevant persons, and that family consent is not a legal prerequisite for the government to open criminal investigations into cases of this kind, since homicide is a state offense, the government’s duty to investigate cannot be vetoed or halted, even by the grieving family. He questioned whether autopsies were even conducted on either victim. The question is, were autopsies conducted on Habila and Dolapo, he asked, the answer is No, without a state conducted post mortem examination, how do we determine the cause of death, identify any foul play, torture, or negligence. Umahi has previously broken his own silence on the matter, describing Mary as like a daughter, rejecting any suggestion of wrongdoing, calling the attempt to link him to the case politics taken too far, and disclosing that she had complained of nose bleeding during a phone call with her boyfriend shortly before she was found dead, while maintaining there is no evidence of foul play and clarifying she was a nurse employed by the Federal University of Health Sciences, Ebonyi State, not a physiotherapist as earlier reported.
