The family of Mary Habila, a 26-year-old nurse found dead in the country home of the Minister of Works, David Umahi, has petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Olatunji Disu, demanding the release of their daughter’s corpse.
In the petition submitted at the Force Headquarters in Abuja on Friday, the family threatened to sue the Ebonyi State Police Commissioner for withholding Habila’s corpse despite the family’s request for its release.
A lawyer, Kaile Adamu Yusuf, who spoke on behalf of the family, said they are against autopsy due to religious and cultural view.
He lamented that the nurse’s death had been made political with many claiming she was “a runs girl”.
The lawyer said, “It is imperative to know that late Mary Habila was not a physiotherapist, rather she was a nurse and was employed in the services of Umayi University of Health Sciences before she was seconded to the minister’s office and she has spent up to three years working with him.
“However, it is regrettably having followed all necessary procedures by the family as required by the Nigerian police in Ebonyi State in order to retrieve the body to give her a defeating burial and having stayed long in that process, unfortunately her body is yet to be released to the family. From all indications, people want to use her as a pawn in their political manoeuvre or manipulation just to score a cheap goal.
“We are here to also ascertain to the fact that the minister has requested times without number for the autopsy of late Mary Habila but the family have resolved and are determined and are still standing their grounds not to allow it because of some personal, cultural and traditional reasons too.
“The family instructed me to write a petition against the Commissioner of Police of Ebony State to the Inspector General of Police of Ebonyi State for her body to be released. and I am here on behalf and on the instructions of the family of late Mary Habila who died on the 27th day of June 2026 in Ebony State.”
On his part, the late nurse’s father, Tanko Habila Wisdom, appealed for the release of the body, saying he needs to give her a befitting burial.
He said the family is not suspecting any foul play in her death and it should not be politicised.
“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,” he said.
He said the family had a cordial relationship with Mary before her death and would appreciate the police respect their wish to bury her peacefully.
