Nigeria's former petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has opened up about her experiences being a cancer patient.

“The priority now is how to take care of my poor health. I’m battling with a very serious type of cancer. I have tried everything to contain the malevolent spread. I have had two surgeries. The first was to take out the lumps from my breast and the second was to cut deeper into the tissues. I did the last one about three weeks ago (now about five weeks)," she said in an interview with Dele Mommodu and published on The Boss.

"I’m still in some pains. I’ve gone through Chemotherapy and now I’m starting Radiotherapy on Monday for five weeks (two Mondays ago). I’m praying this one goes well because I don’t know if there is any thing the doctors can do beyond this… The steroids were devastating and at a point I slipped into coma on July 28. My sugar level went wild first to 25 and then to 80.

"The doctors called it a near-miss and I now know what they mean when people say, “health is wealth”. She continued, “My 14 year old son has been asking if Mummy would die. I really don’t know because I believe nothing is impossible for God. I’ve told my son that I will carry his children and grandchildren… I pray I will.”

“If I was a man may be things would have been different; it would never have gone to this extent… I have never stolen from my country. I will repeat that before God and man even if no one would listen. On this job, you don’t have to steal.

"Nigerians are the most wonderful people if you are lucky to have a few good friends who believe in you. All the foreign Ambassadors say it, the reason many often come back to work and reside in our country. People can call Nigeria and Nigerians bad names but we remain the most generous and humane people on earth…”