Modern-day Lazarus comes to TT with amazing testimony

A NIGERIAN pastor who was pronounced dead hours after being seriously injured in a vehicular accident is in Trinidad and Tobago to share his testimony of being resurrected. Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu, whose amazing story has been endorsed by the doctor who pronounced him dead, the mortician who prepared his body for burial and four pastors who witnessed his resurrection, has been brought to Trinidad and Tobago by local Full-Gospel Churches in collaboration with ISAAC 98.1 FM. He is scheduled to share his testimony at gospel meetings throughout the country over the next few days.

On November 30, 2001, Ekechukwu, pastor of the Power Chapel Evangelical Church in Onitsha, Nigeria, lost control of his car while driving down a steep hill. He was not wearing a seat belt and his body was catapulted forward violently. His head smashed into the windscreen and he was impaled on the steering wheel of his 20-year-old Mercedes Benz. Ekechukwu suffered massive head and internal injuries. Blood was pouring from his nose and he was vomiting blood. Within hours, he was pronounced dead by a doctor of the Owerri Regional Hospital.

Ekechukwu’s wife, Nneka, who was present when he was pronounced dead, could not accept that she would never again see him alive and well. She rushed to the nearby home of a relative, Okoronkwo Emmanuel, who arranged for his own doctor, Dr Jossy Anuebunisa, to examine the body. Anuebunisa confirmed that death had taken place and wrote a report stating time of death as 11.30 pm on the day of the accident. Anuebunisa recalled: “I checked his pulse. There was no pulse. The pupils in his eyes were dilated. There was no heartbeat. The body was moved to the Ikeduru General Hospital Mortuary, near the home of Ekechukwu’s father. Resident mortician Barlington R Manu carried out the normal checks on the body. Since there were no cold storage facilities at the mortuary, Manu administered a chemical injection and prepared the body for embalming. The body was placed on a mortuary slab between two other dead people.”

Nneka, while in shock, kept recalling a Bible verse, Hebrews 11: “Women received their dead raised to life again.” She decided to ask for the body to be taken to the Grace of God church in Onitsha where internationally renowned evangelist Reinhard Bonnke was due to speak. However, Ekechukwu’s father, a Mormon, refused. He declared that he would hit the body seven times with a Bible and if he did not return to life, that would be the end of the matter. He did exactly that and nothing happened. Nneka was determined that her husband’s body be taken to the church meeting: “I felt the anointing of God was so strong there that it would resurrect my husband.”

She insisted that the body be taken to the Bonnke meeting and told her father-in-law and if he refused her this favour, she would remember all her life that he had denied her request on behalf of her husband. Eventually, he relented. On Sunday, December 2, Ekechukwu’s body was dressed, placed in a coffin and taken to the Onitsha church where Bonnke was scheduled to minister. Although there was some initial resistance from officials at the church, they eventually allowed the body to be taken to an upper room where it was laid out on a table.

Four pastors from the church — Pastors Paul Jr, Bathcomery Nkwando, Lawrence Onyeka and Luke Ibekwe — stood guard near the body. Bonnke, who was preaching and praying in the church’s main auditorium, was unaware of what was taking place in the upper room. After a while, the pastors noticed a slight movement of the abdomen of the corpse. Then the corpse drew a breath and irregular breathing began in “short bursts.” The pastors started to pray, stripped the body of gloves, socks and shirt and began to massage it from head to foot. Rigor mortis had already set in and they described the body as being “as stiff as an iron rod.”

Fans were brought into the room to allow Ekechukwu more air to breathe. By this time, the news had reached the church auditorium and pandemonium erupted. Then, at 5.15 pm, nearly two days after he had been pronounced dead, Ekechukwu opened his eyes, sat up and leaned on Onyeka. Onyeka lifted him up and carried him into the church sanctuary where Ekechukwu spoke for the first time since the accident: “Water. Water.” Ekechukwu was given a few sips of water, then some warm tea. They then seated him on a chair on the platform where hundreds witnessed him slowly recovering.

Within two days of his resurrection. Ekechukwu had recovered. He was completely healed and had not even a slight trace of the massive head and internal injuries he suffered in the accident. Ekechukwu will be at the Jean Pierre Complex today and tomorrow at 6 pm. On Tuesday he will speak at Christ Castle, Chaguanas, at 10 am and at Skinner Park, San Fernando, at 7 pm.