In 2014, when he had a minor pain, he thought it was a temporary thing, but surprisingly, the pain got worse, as time went on. He went to some Nigerian hospitals for treatment, but when surgery was recommended, his Church advised that he be taken to South Africa for further treatment. Over there, his case got even worse, as the sickness everybody thought was minor resulted in death. On two occasions, the hospitals confirmed him dead. How he miraculously came back to life was what surprised everybody. Little wonder, Rev. Uba Joshua Nnamdi, the Head Pastor/Area ‘B’ Christian Pentecostal Mission Int’l in Egbe, Ikotun, Lagos, decided to encapsulate everything that happened to him in a book, entitled, ‘And God Kept His Part.’ Today, at the Christian Pentecostal Mission Int’l headquarters church in Ajao Estate, Lagos, family members, friends and well-wishers will be joining Rev. Nnamdi to thank God for sparing his life, as well as, launch the book. He told CHRIS IREKAMBA in this interview what motivated him to write the book.

What is the book all about?
The 40-page book is centred on the goodness of God, concerning my life and how He miraculously brought me back to life, after I was confirmed dead in a South Africa hospital. I was in South Africa, where I pastored our church in March 2014. I returned to Nigeria, having gone to the hospital over there because of the pains I was having at the lower back waist region. It was such a serious pain. But within me, I was fine, because I could still do certain things by myself.

It was on the 17th, after returning that I reported at the headquarters church on 18, and told them of my ordeal. The headquarters directed that I should go to the hospital, which I did. I was given injections and drugs for malaria. But on getting home, the pains increased that night and I couldn’t sleep. The next morning, I went back to the hospital and they gave me another injection for pains. Thereafter, I was asked to go for a test at a clinic close to Ilupeju Barracks, where several tests were conducted and they suggested it was a tumour in my spinal cord. At that point, I could no longer walk with my legs.
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The day I walked into the hospital, was before Good Friday of April 2014. In fact, it was on that Good Friday that my legs collapsed. I complained, but the doctor assured that everything would be okay and thus far, I had received about 116 milligrams of the same injection. Right there, my legs collapsed and became so heavy. But one of the doctors promised he would give me what would strengthen the nerves again. But when one of the specialist consultants came to the hospital that day, he said to me, “don’t stay here. These people can’t handle this.

I would advise you go back to South Africa. They have the equipment, but here, I have told them not to carry out an operation on you. If they do, I’m not part of it.” I related this to my church. And that is why I must thank God for my Daddy, Rev. Dr. O. Ezekiel, and his wife, Mummy Rev Dr. Mrs. Mercy Ezekiel. They made arrangement for me to be taken to South Africa for treatment. Upon arrival there, the doctors shouted and asked which hospital handled this case. I told them, and they said the hospital ought to have told ‘you that the day this thing happened was the day they should have referred you to South Africa, because they couldn’t handle your problem.’ They said, ‘sorry you came late’ because I got there on a Tuesday, after I had stayed for four days in Nigeria.

What was the treatment you got in South Africa?
They carried out several tests, including X-ray, to know if there was any stone in my kidney. In South Africa, they said what made my legs to collapse was due to the injections they gave me in Nigeria. That it was excessive and as a result, blocked the veins from pumping blood down. So, they billed me for surgery in South Africa, and gathered all the experts in the medical field. In fact, it was one of the doctors who specialised in chest that stopped the operation, advising that I should reject it. When I asked him why, He replied, “If you walk into this theatre, you won’t come out alive.” I was shocked, but he took time to explain to me that, “because your lungs are blocked, they can’t pump blood and in that process, if you go for operation, blood would not go in or come out and transfusion would be impossible and you will bleed to death.” As at the time the doctor was explaining this, my lungs had become swollen. So, I could perceive that what he was saying was true. I asked the doctor what could have caused this, and he said, ‘were you given too many injections,’ He said the injections had blocked the veins from pumping blood. It was then that they engaged the specialist doctor, who was to flush my lungs, which started immediately. He gave them two weeks after which they could start the surgery. From the two weeks he gave them, it stretched to three weeks and during this time, my entire system collapsed. They had to go through my back to the spinal cord to run another test, which proved I had mylomacancer, according to them. He said they could handle it. But I really didn’t want my spinal cord operated. So, it was at this point that they started their treatment and the bill was huge. I still want to appreciate CPM authorities, Mummy Rev. Dr. Mrs. Mercy Ezekiel. She is a mother, indeed.

The bill was huge, but the church paid everything. After this, I was taken to Johannesburg Teaching Hospital and there, another rigorous test was conducted. I went through hell and that is why I want people to read the book. It was after the test that they started treatment. But I was surprised, when the doctors concluded that they had done their best, and as such, my people should take me back to Nigeria. Why? They said I had only a few days to live. This hospital is the biggest in Africa, and one of the best in the world. A week before I was to be discharged, they stopped giving me medicine, saying I couldn’t make it any more, but my people didn’t tell me. But my faith in God increased 10 times more. I believe in covenant, I believe in God’s word. Over there, I had my Bible with me. I usually needed the help of a nurse to be able to turn. It was terrible. Even when they gave me food, it was completely difficult for me to eat, as I couldn’t make use of my hands. I was confined on the bed. It was at this point that I was discharged from the hospital. So, on the day they discharged me, a nurse walked in, but she had never attended to me before. As she came to my cubicle, she said, “Joshua, I’ve been asked to remove the head for urine, that is, something they fixed for me to pass urine; that the package belonged to the hospital. I told her that I came with it from the other hospital. She insisted that it belonged to them. I didn’t know she was holding a sharp object. The urine head was not supposed to be cut with a sharp object, as only a cream should have been used to pull it off. But suddenly, I felt a sharp cut on my private part. It was so deep that blood started gushing out. The bleeding was excessive.

But from here, the story changed. The first doctor who came in to attend to me, said: “No, I can’t fix this. Please call another doctor.” Meanwhile, the bed had been messed up with urine and blood. When another doctor, by name Yarn, who was a Chinese, came, he looked at me and cried. He asked Alex who was standing by me, ‘is it because this man is a foreigner that he was being treated this way?’ He assured me he would fix it. By then, I was getting weaker and weaker, because no attempt was made to stop the bleeding. But I must tell you that that doctor did his best and I thought it was over. On leaving that place, the doctor called Alex and said, “don’t take this man home …I don’t know why they discharged him.

This man is not okay to be discharged.” But the authorities had discharged me and signed to that effect. And I was taken away from there back to the former hospital. As they took me away from that hospital, the bleeding started again. By the time I got to the other hospital, I was very weak. As they were making arrangement to readmit me, I called the person that dropped me—Bruno Ezeonye. He was our committee chairman in the church. I said, “I’m tired.

I can’t continue any more. Please, put me on the floor, let me see whether I can get some strength, but he said, “Pastor, you know we can’t drop you on ordinary floor.” He said I should hold on, while they looked for something to wheel me in. But by the time he opened the car to go, my hand was already on the steering of the car, though I didn’t know. In that process, the horn started blaring, which attracted people to where I was and by the time they got to me, I had passed out. I wasn’t aware of all this, I was only told later. As they brought me out of the car, they discovered I was in a pool of my own blood, and the chair of the car was soaked with blood and according to the doctor, I had lost over two pints of blood.

They said I was rushed into the emergency theatre and the first specialist doctor that attended to me checked my pulse and everything and he said to the people, “we are sorry, but you brought in a dead body. There is nothing we can do.” They started crying, until the last doctor came in, who happened to be a woman, and she said, according to Alex, ‘this is somebody’s son, we would treat him.’ But the other doctors said, ‘why do you want to treat somebody who is dead.’ She insisted, and they obeyed her, and started treatment. The story was that our church members had called my headquarters in Nigeria and informed them that Joshua was dead. They also called my senior brother and other family members. I was confirmed dead.

According to them, the woman doctor, who attended to me, escorted me to the ICU department on the seventh floor. I was put on ICU, and right there, I woke up. Some said it was on the second day that I woke up. I thought it was the same day, but they said no. This is one of the things that motivated my writing this book. I want the world to know that there is God and He answers prayers. There’s also a place called heaven. I was taken to heaven.