ONCE again, Governor Sullivan Chime is  selling newspapers and burning up web pegs and social networks. Once again, it is about health issues – only that this time it is not about the governor but about his wife, Clara. Another media fest is thus in full bloom and the ‘meal’ is again, Chime.

The rumour mongers and political wayfarers are reenacting the scene a few months after the governor  took a prolonged leave to treat a developing cancer.

Then, as now, it was a full carnival for everyone. On the pages of newspapers and the social media, the governor suffered everything from AIDS to heart, kidney, lung and whatever failures that could be conjured. He died not less than ten times in different countries notably England and India.

Disgruntled politicians who could find no place to fault Chime’s trailblazing achievements in office, literally danced themselves lame celebrating what they thought was the man’s permanent end. Even when Chime returned, we were told that he was not the person but a copy and that the pictures were doctored. Well, we know where all that went to at the end of the day: the trash can of false history.

The party is on again and this time it is even more groovy since it is centred around Chime’s wife. All manner of stories are now being built and spread out of the health challenges of the Enugu first lady.

A real African should know that a serious health challenge of whatever kind, is normally a burden borne by the family of the affected individual. Such a person and his or her family, would normally attract the sympathy of neighbours and people in general. But not when it involves Governor Chime. Such a development must be politicized, it must be used to ridicule him, it must be used to becloud his achievements, it must be used to fight him.

In this situation, here is a woman with a condition that demands all the support and assistance her family, nay the the world can give her.

A woman needing peace and quiet to overcome her health challenges, is suddenly turned into media spectacle and subjected to even greater mental torture with all the loud and negative publicity about her, just because she happens to be Governor Chime’s wife. In his desperate bid to reap from the situation, a well known lawyer even chose to make nonsense of his professional integrity by falsely claiming that he was representing Mrs Chime.

He had continued to claim so even when the woman had publicly and firmly denied ever consulting or retaining  him. Contrary to what the drivers of this new assault against Chime have claimed, I refuse to agree that all these are happening because Chime is a governor and, therefore, “has lost his right to privacy”

I am convinced  that this matter is being celebrated in the media because some people want it that way and they will do all within their means to ensure that it remains that way for a long time.

The object? To embarrass and distract Governor Chime in the worst possible way since they cannot get at him any other way. If you check carefully, you would notice that all the negative treatment of Governor Chime in the media have always followed the same pattern.

They all started with an anonymous posting on a particular website hardly known for its adherence to professional ethics. Then the posting will suddenly ‘go viral’ and then, all the news media in Nigeria would suddenly abandon all important national issues to focus on Chime’s private issues.

Even the most serious newspapers would suddenly adopt the stance of yellow tabloids. Sundry writers and analysts (some with quaint fake names) would suddenly surface along with some ‘concerned citizens’ and hitherto idle ‘human rights activists’, to discuss these “issues of national importance” in the newspapers and other media. Of course, those behind it all had always found willing partners in the media which had long pencilled Chime down as a non-media friendly governor .

Unfortunately for the sponsors of these anti-Chime frenzies, nobody is really fooled. Try as much as they may have not been able and will never be able to make Enugu people change their view of their exemplary and unparrelled leader-the best they have ever had.

On the streets of Enugu,  even with all the contrived hullabaloo, the people will continue to trumpet the fact that before Chime came to power, Enugu was not one of those places you would readily prefer to be if you had a choice. They will be quick to remind you that Enugu today, is not only the safest place in Nigeria-as the nation’s number one law enforcement officer, the Inspector General of Police, recently declared, but that  it has suddenly become the preferred destination for both local and foreign investors.

Those behind the media frenzy wouldn’t want us to  remember Chime’s massive investment in infrastructural development that has turned the state into one of the most advanced states in the country. They wouldn’t want to mention that there may not be another Governor that can boast of having done  over 350 kilometers of urban roads (complete with drainages, streetlights  solar powered bus stands, and pedestrian walkways)and about 260 kilometers of rural roads ( many of them federal roads) linking all the local goverment areas in his state?

Can they not  discuss the peace, serenity, cleanness and orderliness that now prevails in Enugu or the thousands of jobs that the administration’s developmental initiative has created both in the public and private sectors. The hounds will not want it heard that 97 percent of the communities in Enugu state enjoy electricity and water supply or that street taps have been restored in Enugu after more than three  decades.

They would wish us that we forget the free child and maternal care scheme or the fact that education is free in Enugu up to JSS 3 and that primary and secondary school kids ride free to and fro school courtesy of the government. They will be happy if it is not mentioned that civil servants in Enugu State have been paid on or before the 25th of every month since the inception of the Chime administration ; that the administration has successfully organised four consecutive local government elections and has not been tampering with the funds or interfering in the affairs of the councils.

Of course this article is not about Chime’s achievements as they certainly cannot be contained here. I have only mentioned just  a few of them to show the futility of this wicked  scheme of Chime’s opponents and why neither his  nor his wife’s health challenges,  can cost him his popularity among Enugu people or his standing as one of the best, if not the best Governor in the country today-try as his paid detractors may. I therefore ask them,  where is thy sting?
JOHN OZOAMALU wrote from Enugu.