he underwent treatment in London for nose cancer. The governor had returned to
the state last Friday, after staying away from the country for more than four
months.
Addressing a select
group of journalists at the Government Lodge, Enugu, three days after he
returned to the state to a tumultuous welcome, Chime denied ever being admitted into any
hospital in London, saying that he received treatment in an undisclosed
hospital as an out-patient.
“I was treated abroad for nose cancer,” he said.
He decried media reports that he had died in an
Indian hospital of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS, and other related
diseases.
At the event attended by the deputy governor, Mr.
Sunday Onyebuchi, members of the State Executive Council and other highly
placed government officials, Chime said that, before he left the country last
September, he informed the speaker of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Mr.
Eugene Odo, through a letter that he was proceeding on a long vacation, adding
that he had written again to the speaker to inform him that he was ready to
resume duties.
Onyebuchi had acted as the acting governor of the
state during the period Chime was away.
Chime further disclosed that he had a painless
growth on the neck which was later diagnosed by his doctors in London as
cancerous.
The governor said: “The treatment lasted for 12
weeks, and, throughout the period of the treatment, I was an out-patient. And
so all the publications about one governor being admitted into one hospital
were completely false.
“When I started reading in the newspapers that I
died in India, it was a source of entertainment for us.”
He said that cancer was curable if detected early,
adding that, at the time his doctors detected that he had cancer, the disease
was only located on his neck and nose.
He also claimed that when he started receiving
treatment last September, his doctors asked him to stay off duties for six
months. He, however, stated that the doctors were surprised at the rate of his
recovery when he went back for a review of his status in the first week of January.
Governor Chime, who said he had been certified
“cancer-free” by his doctors, said he was fit to resume duties. He decried the
activities of some groups and indigenes of the state who, during his absence,
tried unsuccessfully to pull the state down.
Source: Leadership
