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By Olu Ayela
The political turf is always funny, mysterious and enigmatic. This is why the bizarre and the sordid hold sway on it most times, a development that make some pundit ascribe dirt, and mystery to it. One key player on the spot in these past few weeks is the Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Mr. David Umahi, who travelled to his hometown, and in the thick of the night, a nurse on his entourage passed away. Hell has since been let loose over the unfortunate incident as naysayers called for the minister’s head.
Whatever happened to Umahi after Mary Habilla’s saga is laid to rest would have thought everyone a lesson on emotional management, that is if politicians and their cohorts would ever learn.
No doubt there had been so many careless and unexplainable deaths across the country aside cold blood murders by terrorists parading themselves as herdsmen and kidnappers. Yet, people die of natural causes any time without respect for age or gender. Of a truth, the death of a promising young woman at 26 should make people shudder, only that there should be a limit to how judgmental politicians who turned themselves to pall bearers should go.
It is unfortunate that when matters arise, particularly when a politician of high networth is involved in an imbroglio, everyone tends to become an expert of sorts. Tempting, but wrong. The outburst and rumpus over the death of the 26-year-old Habilla, who had worked with Umahi for three years should have provoked a sober reflection. Not with the Nigerian political jobbers who feasted on the sombre situation like vulture. Is Umahi not a minister? Why should someone die in his guest house? They seem to ask as if the minister is God.
It was Alfred Opubor, Africa’s first professor of Mass Communication (1969-1987) who once said: “In the absence of big meat, people chew cartilages and spew on the rabble,” by which he meant that when there are no big ideas, politicians unwittingly dwell on scums.
Tanko Habilla, father to the deceased who spoke on behalf of the family offered a seductive-sounding treatment: “We do not suspect any foul play. Give us her body to bury.” He had to come out when he saw how the pendulum of conspiracy against Umahi was swinging. Of course, there is nothing wrong with coroner inquest to identify the cause of death. The surprising part is that political jobbers who were envious of Umahi’s rise and rise in the nation’s landscape were not consoled. They turned themselves into a diagnosis-related group, offering all sorts of arguments and crying more than the bereaved.
This was notwithstanding Umahi’s declaration that there was no truth in the suspicion that anyone was behind Mary’s death. “She was like a daughter to me these past three years. She was a staff of Dave Umahi University Teaching Hospital and she has been seconded to the Ministry of Works and she worked with me,” he said at a press conference.
The frustrated minister and former governor of Ebonyi State lamented that the guest house the nurse and her colleague slept the night she died was far from where he was with his family that night. Umahi’s warning against the politicisation of the incidence fell on deaf ears.
“Everything goes into politics. But what I say to people is, be careful: life is spiritual. When you want to use the unfortunate death of a young girl to play politics, if we have hands in it, let it follow us in our families,” he declared. What more can a sane person expect from the minister?
Even arguments that the deceased told the boyfriend that she was bleeding from the nose a night before her passing, would not appeal to the critics. Logically, one would have recommended that affiliates be henceforth lodged in private hotels, but the case would have been worse if Habilla had been lodged outside the minister’s compound, as wicked minds would have claimed he exposed her to danger.
These jobbers who see Umahi as the giant on their political path to continuity should sheathe their sword till the findings of the coroner inquest is out. Their weaponising the sad incidence is no succour to anyone and they should consider the psyche of the parents and relations who are grieving their departed one, and chart the course of their progress in the political arena too.
Those envying Umahi’s giant strive and performance in the zone should go and rest as their pull-him-down cries are dead on arrival. The opposition politicians should check themselves, in case they have another hurt, or are even guilty of the death of the young woman and make restitution instead of stoking unnecessary fire.
There is no doubt that our politicians still have a lot to learn from their foreign counterparts. The death of a public official , no matter where, should not be a matter for political bravura. Who among them can create life?
How many of the hatchet men and their social media handlers have any inkling of the deceased’s health records? Aside, how many of them know anything about her treatment in Turkey? Although common sense is not common as it is often said, politicians should be careful at all times because he, who has not died now, does not know what will kill him or her.
Umahi may be facing the music of being a good neighbour to his towns girl at the moment, that should not dampen his spirit in helping whosoever comes for assistance. Truth, it is painful, but such is life. The minister should keep pushing his circumstances trusting that God will always see him through the machination of satanic odious vermin.
•Chief Olu Ayela, a veteran journalist, writes from Lagos
