Before Habila joins the ugly roll
y Mahmud Jega
The death last month of Kaduna State-born nurse Mary Habila in a powerful Federal Minister’s country home in Ebonyi State has already caused shock and mystery around the country, but it is only the latest in a string of such mysterious deaths linked to power and wealth in Nigeria over several decades.
As schoolboys in the 1970s, we were regaled by a running story, especially in the now defunct New Nigerian newspaper, of the Kaduna based private legal practitioner Alhaji Rauph Omobolaji Gaji, who was accused of killing his girlfriend, Cordelia Ejiofor. He was said to have beaten and kicked her with his legs and fists at his Kaduna home on 3rd day of December, 1972. He was charged before a Kaduna High Court; leading the prosecution was the then Attorney General of North Central State, Mamman Nasir [later Supreme Court judge and still later, President of the Court of Appeal]. The star prosecution witness, Mrs. Gladys Ibidun Wey, a client of the appellant who happened to be in his house that night, witnessed the severe beating. She testified that when Gaji emerged from his bedroom after the beating, he offered to take the girl to Kakuri General Hospital, that she got into the car with him and held Cordelia, who she said died on the way to the hospital.
According to Mrs. Wey, Gaji then dropped her on the road and drove away at high speed with the corpse. Which was never found, although police recovered some human remains along Kachia Road which were thought to be Cordelia’s. At his trial, Gaji refused to enter a plea, refused to call any witnesses and refused to testify. There was therefore no autopsy and no medical report, so the High Court judge sentenced Gaji to 12 years for manslaughter, saying the beating was only a probable cause of death, which the Supreme Court later upheld.
Years later, in the late 1970s, there was the very sensational case of wealthy Kano businessman Alhaji Nafi’u Rabi’u, who was accused of strangling his wife, Hajiya Fati, herself the daughter of a prominent Borno family. The couple apparently had a quarrel, and the following morning, domestic servants and the children said Nafi’u behaved in a weird manner, told them he lost his house keys, asked his cook to open the kitchen door, and was seen putting soiled blankets and clothes into the boot of his car. He then handed the keys to his cook and said he should give them to his wife whenever she woke up, that she was still asleep. Hours later, his children and the cook, anxious that she had not yet emerged, went upstairs, forced open the door and found her dead.
Nafi’u Rabi’u was tried at the High Court of Kano State. Very controversially, the trial judge, former Chief Justice of Northern Nigeria Justice J.R. Jones, a Whiteman, said the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she died from strangulation. He then discharged and acquitted Nafi’u Rabi’u. It was also Justice Jones’ last case because he retired soon after and left the country. As soon as Mohamed Abubakar Rimi became Governor, Kano State Government appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal, which overturned the acquittal but sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment for culpable homicide, which also became controversial.
The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge failed to properly evaluate the evidence before him. Consequently, it overturned the acquittal and convicted Nafi’u Rabi’u, saying the death must have resulted from a fight. Both Rabi’u and Kano State Government appealed to the Supreme Court, one to get the judgment reversed, the other to obtain a death sentence instead of a jail term. As the case unfolded, Kano State Government controversially withdrew its cross-appeal, while Supreme Court dismissed Nafi’u’s appeal and affirmed his four-year sentence. Sensationally, Justice Udo Udoma, who delivered the ruling, declared that Supreme Court wished it could hand down a death sentence instead but that its hands were tied because KNSG withdrew its cross appeal.
In March 1988, newspaper headlines in Nigeria were dominated by the case of Sergeant Israel Ameh, a police officer guarding the residence of then Inspector General of Police Muhammadu Gambo Jimeta. According to reports at the time, expensive jewelry belonging to the IGP’s wife was stolen in the house. Police suspected Ameh, who was detained, allegedly tortured and he died in detention. It was military rule era and IGP was a member of the Armed Forces Ruling Council, so the police probe of the incident did not go down well with the public.
Before you get the impression that it is only Nigerian men who do the alleged killings, remember the case of Maryam Sanda, who in 2017 murdered her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, by repeatedly stabbing him with a knife while he knelt in late night prayer at their Abuja home. A Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja convicted her in January 2020 and sentenced her to death. She went to the Court of Appeal but in December 2020, the judgement was affirmed. In December last year, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence. Some weeks earlier, Maryam was about to walk free because she controversially featured in a presidential amnesty roll. Following loud public outcry, the President reversed the pardon but still commuted her death sentence to twelve years’ imprisonment, with six years already served. Despite the presidential rigmarole, the Supreme Court, by a 4-1 majority, upheld the death sentence in December 2025. The apex court also said it was wrong for the president to seek to grant a pardon to the convict in a culpable homicide case in respect of which an appeal was still pending.
Murders that Nigerian men can do, Nigerian women can do even better. In 2021, there was the highly publicized case of the killing of Usifo Ataga, CEO of Super TV, in a rented apartment at Lekki, Lagos. The police arrested Chidinma Adaora Ojukwu, a 300-level Mass Communication student at the University of Lagos, who confessed to the fatal stabbing of Ataga. Though she admitted to stabbing Ataga, she claimed that she did it in self-defense following a struggle over hard drugs. After killing him, Chidinma also took away the victim’s ATM cards and iPhone.
Police paraded Chidinma before newsmen, said she was caught with a blood-soaked cloth worn on the day of the incident and that she confessed to stabbing the deceased with a kitchen knife, which she took away and disposed in a dustbin at her residence. Also found on her were a fake driver’s licence bearing Mary Johnson, complimentary cards, Access Bank account statement, one Nigerian passport, the suspect’s photograph, one National Identification Card, one UBA ATM debit card and University of Lagos identity card.
In April last year, yet another sensational murder case reached a climax when a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja sentenced Peter Nwachukwu, husband of late popular gospel singer Osinachi Nwachukwu, to death by hanging for her murder. He had been charged to court by the Attorney General of the Federation in June 2022 for culpable homicide punishable with death, criminal intimidation, cruelty to children, criminal intimidation of children and spousal battery. The court found Nwachukwu guilty of culpable homicide resulting from the death of the celebrated singer on April 8, 2022.
While delivering his judgment, Justice Nwosu-Iheme held that the prosecution had proven the burden of proof placed on it by the law and subsequently found the defendant guilty. 17 witnesses including the late singer’s two children testified for the prosecution. Nwachukwu was in addition sentenced to two years’ imprisonment each on seven other counts, to six months’ imprisonment on Count 10, three years’ imprisonment in Count 11, and was fined N500,000 and N200,000 respectively on Counts 6 and 7 respectively.
Now comes the case of Mary Habila, the nurse on the entourage of Works Minister Dave Umahi during a visit to his country home in Ebonyi State, who was found dead one morning. We cannot yet call this one a murder, because the results of police and other investigations are not yet in. It has however generated almost as much sensation as the previous cases, because the death occurred in a minister’s house, people are asking why a nurse travels with a minister’s convoy, why she lodged in his house [Minister said it is not his main house, but a staff chalet], why the Minister is making statements at a press conference instead of to an investigation panel, why the Presidency is slow to take action to facilitate the investigation, why the Chairman of Habila’s native Jaba Local Government in Kaduna State, Larai Sylvia Ishaku, is pre-empting the investigation by her remarks during a condolence visit to the family, and also why Mary Habila’s father is refusing to allow an autopsy to determine the cause of death, and is instead demanding her remains for a hurried burial. Please, don’t allow this case to lengthen the ugly roll of mysterious Nigerian deaths.
