The Save Enugu Group (SEG) has declared the photos of ailing Governor Sullivan Chime with some members of the Nigerian Governors Forum released yesterday by the Enugu State Government (ENSG) to be fake. The photos showed Chime, who has not been seen publicly for over a hundred days, looking fit as he posed with Governors Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Gabriel Suswam (Benue) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), who purportedly visited him in London yesterday.

But speaking with News Express this morning, SEG Convener, Maxi Okwu (Ikenecheoha II), said: “The ENSG came up with that photo trick to meet our deadline.”

SEG had given the ENSG to clear the air on Chime’s whereabouts and his fate. The deadline ends today.

“Our response to this latest stunt would emerge after an emergency meeting of SEG today,” Okwu said while explaining that the group’s “deadline has been overtaken by events if you read our letter of 7th.” According to him, “The question in that letter was; where is Gov Chime. Its generally know and impliedly conceded by ENSG that he is in London recuperating. The issue is what exactly is his health status? And secondly the response to our letter of 16th demanding and apology from Mr Onyebuchi on behalf of ENSG for all the lies and spin inter alia.”

In a Facebook post late last night, the SEG Convener had described the photo (published here) as “GOVERNMENT MAGIC,” saying: “Gov Amaechi was in USA on a business trip from where he proceeded to South Africa, where is the leader of Nigerian delegation to AFCON. For Gov Akpabio, his aides just confirmed that he left Akwa Ibom yesterday for Lagos!”

Supporting SEG’s position that the photos are fake, a source said: “This picture was taken in Davos during the world Economic summit. Who is fooling who? Enough of this crap? It was never taken this week. Check your photo file even on AFP and you’ll find out it was taken last year. God punish the spin doctors.”