Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi has laid it bare about his relationship with Miss Mary Habila and the cause of her death.
Speaking to Journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, Umahi said the deceased was like a daughter to him.
He disclosed that she was his nurse who administered injections to him and his family.
He chided those who were using the unfortunate situation to blackmail him in the name of politics.
According to Umahi, Mary spoke to her boyfriend at the hour of her death, and complained that she was bleeding from the nose. “And the boyfriend said, no, you have to report. So the boyfriend said, listen, I will not continue this conversation since you are bleeding, you can increase the bleeding. And she told the boyfriend, don’t cut the call, the boyfriend cut the call. And three minutes later, the boyfriend called again. She was not responding”.
The Minister also disclosed that when Mary’s bedroom door was broken down in the morning, the tap was still running. He said she and another medical personnel were lodged in his guest house in Ebonyi while he was in Abuja.
“Somebody dies in the Ministry of Work, the minister must be accountable to that. Is that what they are saying? Is that what they are saying that somebody cannot die? Have they checked the medical records of the lady? Do they know that this lady was like a daughter to me? But what I say to people, be careful. Life is spiritual, when you want to use the unfortunate death of a young girl to do politics…”, Umahi said.
He further revealed that he has been begging Mary’s parents to allow autopsy to be conducted to ascertain the cause of her death:
“We’ve been begging the parents to allow autopsy to happen. They say it’s against their culture. But the question is that if she were a Muslim, would you be insisting that autopsy would happen? but we insist on it. We are aware that autopsy should happen. And we are begging the parents to allow autopsy to happen”, he said.
The Minister however queried those insinuating he had a hand in the lady’s death:
“But it’s very strange, why an unfortunate thing that happened is in their business. Is it that we killed a woman that was giving us injection and administering drug to us, that lived in our guest house? So, people should be careful, because when I kneel down to pray, I say, God, may the death of the girl be better than their own death. That’s my prayer for everybody that is using it to play politics”, he said.
Umahi also disclosed that she had a medical record with the Turkish Hospital and urged that it be consulted for necessary investigations:
“The last one was of 2012. And it cost me 2.2 million. The records are there, it’s an unfortunate thing that happened, and like I said again, she’s receiving treatment at Turkish Hospital, and the medical records are there”, he said.
