Pat Utomi: How I battled Cancer during 2023 elections campaign

Professor of political economy, Pat Utomi, has revealed that he was diagnosed with cancer in 2022.

The management expert, who was actively involved in the electioneering campaign, said he endured being smuggled in and out of medical centers as he battled with cancer during the build-up to 2023 elections.

Recall that Utomi, a presidential aspirant of the Labour Party, stepped down for Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the party in 2023.

He was a major voice for Obi before and after the elections.

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In a series of tweets on Friday, Utomi, who did not disclose the exact form of cancer he is battling, said many Nigerian men above 60 experience such.

Speaking about his struggles, Utomi said he visited a Cancer Centre which has a branch in Ikeja and Victoria Island even as Nigerians prepared for 2023 elections.

“Did not see why it was taboo to say you were in a battle with Cancer. The more I talked about it the more I found many of my age in similar circumstances,” he wrote on X.

“It almost seems like an epidemic for Nigerian men over 60. Not talking makes them lose the benefit of early detection.

“Once elections were over, my young nephews and cousins, Doctors in Europe and the US joined forces with the Lakeshore people and decided they wanted me in their direct care. That’s how it seemed. I went quiet cause they controlled my phones to reduce stress.”

Utomi is a revered technocrat and astute politician in the country. He was the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Mega Party in the 2011 elections.

Founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership, Utomi has been in the public eye since the late ’70s when he was appointed special assistant to then President Shehu Shagari.