About

On November 30th 2001, Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu and a friend drove form Onitsha in Nigeria to his father’s village outside Owerri to deliver a Christmas gift.

On their way home, Pastor Daniel attempted to apply the brakes at the bottom of a steep hill, not far from his house. The brake pedal went straight to the floor without resistance. The car impacted a stone pillar and Daniel’s chest was thrust into the steering wheel and his head into the windshield.

He was rushed to the closest hospital in Onitsha and placed in the intensive care. His condition was described as serious ….

Later, his wife, Mrs Nneka Ekechukwu who was pregnant was brought to see him in the hospital.

Pastor Daniel was told, ‘pastor, pastor, your wife is here.’ He opened his eyes and called his dear wife.

Daniel was removed from the hospital but with dire warnings from the medical staff to Federal Medical Centre where Daniel wanted a particular doctor to attend to him at Owerri. Only minutes into the journey, he started having problem breathing.

He called his wife in the ambulance that conveyed them and began instruct her to take care of the children, the ministry and other things he was leaving behind.

Nneka asked, ‘do you want to leave me and the children behind and go?’

He said there was nothing to worry about since he has built a house for them. He added that some people are destined to die young. He was in that category of people. His journey as far as he could see had ended.

Nneka began to cry, calling his name. She thought of all she would go through in the future as a young widow. He tried to console her by telling her not to cry but she reminded him of the pregnancy.

Mr Kingsley Iraka, the friend of Pastor Daniel who was also in the car but not seriously wounded was with them as they went to the Federal Medical centre.

They got to the Federal Medical Centre late in the night. They were told the doctor they wanted to see was not around. Another doctor and a nurse attended to them. They were told Daniel was an accident victim. When they checked him, the doctor told them it was too late to save his life. Daniel was pronounced dead. The doctor advised them to take him to the mortuary.

Daniel’s uncle, Mr Okoronko Emmanuel and his family that were with him took him from Federal Medical Centre to St. Eunice’s clinic where they met Dr Josse Annbunwa.
Dr Annbunwa thoroughly examined him. He checked his chest. There was no respiratory movement. He listened with the stethoscope. There was no sound of breathing. He searched the heart. There was no sound. The patient had no pulse. He looked at the eyes. The pupils were fixed and dilated. Then he confirmed that Daniel was dead. Like the first doctor, he advised that the dead body should be taken to the mortuary.

The impression on the paper confirms that Daniel was dead.

Daniel’s home town is close to Owerri. So Nnweka decided that they should go and inform his father, Mr Lawrence Ekechukwu.

After seeing the dead body, Mr L Ekechukwu took him with the wife to the mortuary immediately to avoid crowd.

Mr Belington Manu, the mortician received the body of Daniel. He tested him to confirm if he was dead as the normal procedure. He found no life, no heartbeat and other signs of life in him. Every part of his body had become stiff. So he accepted him as a corpse.

After accepting him as a corpse, the mortician began to embalm him. After the embalmment, the dead body was taken to the second slab in one of the rooms in the mortuary.

On Saturday, Daniel’s father left for Onitsha to take the family of Daniel home. When they were about to sleep, Nneka began to cry, praying and calling the name of Jesus and reminding Him of all the promises He had made to her. She remembered specifically that God once told her that that year she would not experience any violence in her home. According to the promises, she would be called the city of the Lord. So whenever anything happened, she would hold God on that word. When her husband died, she told God that night this is another violence which He had promised would not happen. What particularly motivated her to hold strongly to the promises of God was the passage in the Bible that was addressed to her in Hebrew 11: 35 which says, “women received their dead raised to life again…” The moment she read the verse, her faith was strengthened.
That night, she could not sleep. She kept thinking of the promises of God to her. Then she told herself, “No, this cannot happen. I must do something to prove God.”

She told her father-in-law that they should take Daniel’s dead body away from the mortuary to Onitsha where Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke was holding a crusade.

Because of Nneka’s firm faith that her husband could still come back to life, her father-in-law granted her request to remove the dead body which was already smelling of chemicals from the mortuary.

They went to the mortician and asked for the dead body after telling him what they planned to do with it. The body was put in a casket, ready to be taken away to Onitsha.

All the while none of the children was aware of the death of their father as the people felt they were too young to know about it so soon. The first child soon began to suspect that something was wrong. He began to ask of his father but he was told he was not around. The boy began to cry, adding more to the sorrow of his mother.

The casket was put inside an ambulance. They drove it with Nneka to Grace Of God Ministries in Onitsha where the crusade was to be held. When they reached the entrance, Nneka asked if Bonnke has come.

Bonnke was at the place the second day of December 2001 to commission “The Kingdom Of Life World Evangelism.”

Pastor (Dr) Paul Nwachukwu, the pastor of the church and his people had put advertisements, inviting people to come to the crusade. The general populace was informed that there would be prayers for the sick and that Evangelist Bonnke would pray for the people of Onitsha. That was how Nneka got to know he was coming.

Around 1:00 pm (13:00), Bonnke was already preaching to the people. Suddenly, somebody went to inform Pastor Paul that a dead man had been brought in an ambulance. By then, the state security men and the police were around to ensure that there was no violence through out the time of the crusade. They had ordered the casket to be opened because they felt they could be carrying bomb instead of a dead body. When they were satisfied that it a corpse, they let it go. The local security men also stopped them. They had an argument among themselves whether or not to allow the people to take the dead body into the church. All the while, Nneka continue to tell that she believed that her husband will still come back to life.

Two other pastors, Paul Nwachukwu Jnr; the son of Pastor (Dr) Nwachukwu Snr. and Nkwado rushed out to the place where the driver of the ambulance had already been told to drive up.

Pastors Nwachukwu Jnr. with Nkwado joined them. He asked of the wife of the dead man. The pastors later interviewed her. She explained to them what made her believed her husband would rise from the dead. She believed that the anointing in the place would be so high that it would make her husband resurrect.

The two pastors felt that it would not be proper to take a corpse into the church. Besides, if God would raise the dead man, the place He would perform the miracle does not really matter. So they decided that the corpse should be removed from the casket and taken to the youth conference centre of the church. The corpse was laid on the table.

After Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke had finished preaching, he began to pray for the people. Later, Pastor (Dr) Paul Nwachukwu Snr. took him to the office.
As they were in the office, someone rushed in to inform them that the dead man was now breathing.

The pastors continued to pray and massage his body since he was still very stiff. By now some people who were aware of what was happening started to take his photographs.

As the pastors continued to pray, he continued to get revived, attracting more and more crowd to the building. There were so much people that everywhere were blocked, preventing fresh air from coming into the hall. Everybody wanted to see the dead man that had come back to life. It became very difficult to drive them away.

After massaging his body and praying for a long time, every part of the body of Pastor Daniel began to get warm and full of life once again.

Later, Pastor Paul Nwachukwu Snr. picked the microphone and announced it to the people that the dead man that was brought to the place was now breathing. The announcement resulted into deafening uproar of the crowd, making more crowds to troop to the youth conference centre.

The great shout around the building caused Daniel who had been lying down on the table unconsciously to jump on his feet suddenly. One of the men grabbed him.

Daniel looked around, wondering where he was. The crowds that were yarning to see him compelled the pastors to take him to the upper room.

Daniel began to ask for his file. No one understood what he was saying. Then he asked for some water. While someone went to get it, he again asked for his file.

He was later taken to the main auditorium of the church.

PASTOR DANIEL EKECHUKWU RELATES HIS EXPERIENCE AS A DEAD MAN


I went back to my village with a ram and gave it to my father. I told him I would be coming back with bags of rice for Christmas.

One my way back to my house in Onitsha, I encountered a very big hill. The hill is very steep. While driving down the hill, the brakes of my car failed. It was a Mercedes 230E. I tried to control the car but I could not. Because the hill is very dangerous, there are pillars on the side of the road to keep cars from turning and going down the ravine. My car then hit those pillars and my chest hit the steering wheel. I remember vomiting blood. Blood was also coming from my nose.

There was someone with me. He was also wounded.

I remembered they brought me out of the ambulance at the hospital. That was all I remember.

While in the hospital, I became conscious again. I just looked round and saw all the drips and the things they fixed on my body. I now requested them to take me to Dr Misereke in Owerri. He has been my doctor. When I was once injured, he was the one that took care of me.

I requested that they should take me to the doctor in Owerri. But because of the way I was breathing, I felt that something could happen along the way. So I requested that my wife should stay with me in the ambulance. The two of us were in the ambulance when I saw two angels. I was frightened. I wanted to say what I saw but one of them gestured to me not to say it. That was the time I knew I was close to death. So I began to tell my wife to take care of the family and the ministries.

Then the two angels carried me away. We came to a place where they handed me to an angel who told me we are going to visit paradise. We were communicating like human beings. I asked him questions and he answered them. He was holding me like a friend. I observed that wherever he said we were going, we would just appear in the place. We would neither fly nor move.

When we got to the place, I saw multitudes of people that looked exactly like the one with me. The angel with me wore white apparel. The body was pure white but the apparel did not looked removable form his body.

When I saw the multitudes, I said in my heart, “look at where angels gather.” This is what I thought as I still could have some thoughts within myself there.

Then the angel told me, “This is where the saints that have died are gathered.”

I watched them as they sang praises so wonderfully. It was as if there was a force controlling their movements. When they raised their hands, they raised them simultaneously. No one would be faster and no one would be late. If they wanted to bow down, they would bow down simultaneously. During all these periods, I was hearing a lot of musical instruments but I never saw any.

In my spirit, I greatly desired to go and join them. I even made a move to join them but the angel said, “No, I still have a lot of things to show you. Do not join them.”

After that, he said, “Let us visit the mansion that Jesus promised.”

The angel took me to a wonderful place. In fact, I do not have any word to describe what I saw there. It was so glorious. It was a very wonderful mansion. You could look at the building and it would look like glass or look like gold – I mean is indescribable. Even the flowers there looked like gold.

As I was looking at the place, he told me that Jesus had finished the mansion but the saints are not ready. Then he said, “Let us visit hell.” That was the last I saw of heaven. Within the twinkle of an eye, we got to the place called hell.

We got to the place, we saw a gate that was so big, so large. The angel raised his hand up and the gate opened with a fearful noise. Immediately the gate opened, I started hearing lamentations. I looked inside and saw people that looked like us here. They put on cloths like us and had the same flesh like us. Some are black and some are white. They looked just like us and not like the ones I had seen in heaven. They were shouting – there were lots of pains – a lot of torments. It was to the extent that they were begging me to help them. It was as if they were seeing only me. I don’t think they saw the angel because they never ask him for help. They were all asking me for help. I remember the case of a pastor that really touched me. I was touched because I am a pastor too. The man was shouting, “I am a pastor. I only stole church money and I am ready to refund it.”

There was a force that was tormenting them. I never saw any fire or flames in hell but the torment there looks as if the people were inside fire.

I was writing down what I experienced. When I woke up, the first thing I asked for was my file. No one could understand me. It was later that I realized that the file was probably the experience I am sharing with you.

The angel said that I have another chance to go back. He mentioned that the request of the rich man in hell had been granted to this generation. I did not understand until I woke up and realised that the angel referred to the rich man in the Bible. His request was that a dead person should be sent back to the world to tell them about the life after death. He said he is giving me the chance to go and give last warning to this generation.

Dr Josse Annunwa who confirmed that he was dead expressed his shock to see Daniel alive again.

Pator Paul Nwachukwu Snr. confirming that he smelt of chemicals when he was brought to the church.

While concluding his experience, Pastor Daniel said, “When I saw the angels, I knew this is death. Somehow I am blessed but I never remember anything. When a person dies, he does not remember anything – not even his family.”

Well, you have read the testimony of someone who has experienced what happens after death. So no one has any excuse of saying he or she does not know what exists after death.

The Bible says in Hebrew 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto all men to die once after this the judgment.”

There is a similar story titled Encounter With Living Dead in the Encounter Stories e-book.