Deepening mystery: SaharaReporters exposes conflicting accounts over tragic death at Works Minister’s Ebonyi quarters

A physiotherapist identified as Mary Habbila was found dead and naked at the Ebonyi residence of Nigeria’s Minister of Works David Umahi on June 27, 2026, with police sources disputing the minister’s official account of how she came to be there, according to an exclusive investigation by SaharaReporters.

MYSTERIOUS DEATH AT MINISTER UMAHI’S RESIDENCE SPARKS POLICE PROBE

The official story is unravelling — and the questions surrounding the death of Mary Habbila inside the home of Nigeria’s Minister of Works are getting harder to ignore.

SaharaReporters, which broke and has continued to investigate the story, reports that Habbila — a physiotherapist — was found without clothing when her body was removed from Minister David Umahi’s residence in Uburu, Ebonyi State, on the morning of June 27, 2026. Exclusive photographs obtained and independently verified by the publication confirm those details.

Umahi’s official position is that Habbila and another woman, Anita Baski, were physiotherapists seconded to his residence from the David Umahi Federal University of Health Sciences. But police sources familiar with the investigation have directly disputed that account, telling SaharaReporters that both women travelled from Kaduna State on June 26 and were brought to the minister’s residence by Jonathan Bawado — a police officer serving as Umahi’s personal assistant and his former aide-de-camp during his tenure as Ebonyi State Governor. Bawado, the same sources say, was also the person who alerted medical personnel after Habbila was found unresponsive.

In a statement issued by his media aide Francis Nwaze, Umahi described Habbila’s death as “unfortunate” and said he received the news “with profound shock and sadness,” adding that he personally received her parents and encouraged them to consent to an autopsy — which the family initially declined.

The case has since been transferred from the Ohaozara Divisional Police Headquarters to the Ebonyi State Criminal Investigation Department in Abakaliki. Both the Ebonyi State Government and the state police command maintained silence on the matter before SaharaReporters published its findings.