In a news conference a few days ago, Gov. Sullivan Chime revealed that he was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer (cancer of the nose) last year and had been undergoing outpatient treatment in London which warranted his 5 month absence from office.
"...I can say that I can beat my chest to thank the Deputy Governor who led the team and who ensured that the system worked in my absence. I am happy that we have almost attained that height and when we will be leaving in a few years time, we will be glad we have built a system and it is a good thing to notice that we didn’t have problems in spite of all attempts made by our brothers and sisters to undermine us. The government of Enugu state has come to stay, the system put by us has come to stay."
"..I decided to use the period of my vacation to take care of myself I don’t see how it should concern anybody, I don’t see why we should owe anybody any apologies..."
“So we came back to Nigeria and within the two weeks, I was able to make arrangements for transition. I wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House of Assembly in accordance with the constitution, informing him of my decision to proceed on leave and of course sought his cooperation to work very well with the Deputy Governor, who would work as governor in my absence. Within the two weeks, we held two exco meetings, the last was held on Tuesday, the week I left. After the EXCO meeting, I told my EXCO members that I was proceeding on long vacation which I wouldn’t know how long it would last to treat myself. That was the information they got and of course I told them to cooperate with the acting governor. The following day, I left for Abuja, which was a Wednesday and again attended the meeting of the Governors’ Forum, that night. Then Thursday morning, we had National Economic Council meeting and the Deputy Governor was there to represent me."
His executive were aware of his health condition so I'm wondering if it would have been too much to ask to relay the information to Nigerians who were all thinking "wtf is the governor awol for over 3 months?" I'm not even talking about specific details, merely letting Nigerians know that the governor was undergoing medical treatment in London and is responding well should do.
The bolded part isn't news - politicians want one thing: to get ahead! I started reading this thinking he would talk about how his near death experience made him realize that Nigeria needed better health infrastructure because not many Nigerians can fly out of the country for 3 months to get chemotherapy. Oh no, the Governor is just happy that while he was gone his gubernatorial office did not collapse. Can you blame him? No gubernatorial office, no money to steal.
I lol'd as I read comments of Nigerians wishing him speedy recovery. Yes, I am happy that the governor's health is better but let's ask for accountability while we're at it. Speaking of accountability:
Oh snap! Here I was thinking that since he was elected by the people, the people have a right to know. It's definitely okay to pull a disappearing act, use tax payer money and explain later. Smh! Fact is, if Gov Chime was an average citizen of Enugu state he would have died due to lack of affordable treatment.
