Vanguard Media Christian Fellowship, yesterday, held its annual thanksgiving service at its corporate headquarters, with the company’s General Manager/Editor-in-Chief, Mr. Gbenga Adefaye, giving a stunning testimony of how he was delivered from sudden death.

Adefaye, who claimed he died and was brought back to life in the office premises on Monday, insisted on giving the testimony for other journalists and, indeed, all persons to always check their health status and be close to God.

The Editor-in-Chief, whose blood pressure was 80/40 at the point of revival, heartily danced and gave glory to God for not throwing his wife into widowhood by sparing his life to complete divine assignment.

He warned: “You don’t have to be sick to die. There is what they call sudden death and why they call it sudden death is because it happens suddenly.”

Narrating his ordeal, Adefaye spoke further: “I chose to come here and announce to all of you that I am alive. I could have stayed back at home and say I am resting and I am not sick, but it would be a pretense and I am deceiving myself.

“On Monday, a lot of you would have heard the story that I collapsed and I was revived here by the grace of God. I have been to the hospital for clinical check-up and I was certified okay.

“I need to share with you from my experience because we need to learn from each other’s experience.

“I have been to churches and I have heard people giving testimonies of how they died and saw hell, heaven, spirit and I would call them jokers (awon oni yeye). But I can tell you that it happened to me.

“I died here on Monday. I have a witness; the nurse, she is here. I died and came back. Not because of strength, money or brilliance but because of God and that I still have assignment here on earth.”

‘My testimony’

His words: “I have a small narration so that we can all learn from it. I am sharing my testimony for the learning point. Normally on Mondays, we have marathon meetings, which can be exhausting. Sometimes when we finish, depending on the mood, I will ask my secretary to get my food for me.

“Last Monday was particularly stressful for me. The day before, this young man had jolted me with some nasty information that kept me awake throughout the night, because we have some flashy programmes that we are running.

“I am going to be very open: medical information are supposed to be confidential, but because of the peculiarity of what happened to me, I am going to be very open.

“I have been treating high blood pressure for years. It is either what I acquired on hereditary note or based on the nature of our job. The report I have from our hospital was that more than 65 percent of our staff are hypertensive.

“Nobody can say on health matters I have been negligent. I do not joke with my health. Apart from the company’s hospital, anywhere I am, I always retain a personal hospital. The hospital I used here in Lagos, if I put them on the medical board, they are of high standard and I have benefited a lot from them.

“In terms of medicare, I try to give myself the best. It is when you are alive that you can spend money. In any case, do not deceive yourself.

“I took my medication on hypertension in the morning and I went for my assignment. We finished the marathon meeting and instead of going to the office, something told me to go and eat with my colleagues.

“At the canteen, Theodore Opara went to take our meal and two of us sat together. I took one wrap of pounded yam which I could not finish. Then Theodore looked at me and said ‘Oga you are not feeling fine’ and I said ‘yes I am not.’

“He poured water for me, which I drank. All of a sudden, I started sweating and all I knew was that I raised my hand to wipe my face and I was gone.

“It is only Theodore that can tell the other part of the story because I was not here. I did not know what happened.

“Water was poured on my head and I came back. I asked what happened to me and I was told that I was vibrating all over. My hands were shaking, eyes came out popped, tongue full wide and then my hands dropped.

“I came back to life. The nurse came and I was escorted to the company’s clinic. I was given saline water and when my blood pressure was checked, it had dropped to 80/40. The nurse had to boost the blood pressure to 90/65 which was okay for me to go home. I went straight to my hospital to meet my doctor.

“The review was taken and the doctor said I was lucky, that more than 95 percent of my cases did not survive it.

“The doctor said what saved me was that I was in the company of people and that if I was alone in my office, I would have slumped on the chair and nobody would known what happened.”

Learning points

On lesson to learn from the incident, the GM said: “You do not have to be sick before you die. There is what they call sudden death and why they call it sudden death is because it happened suddenly. It took the grace of God that I did not die. God provided Theodore for me, because I still have some assignments here on earth.

“I asked myself that in that fleeting moment, my wife could have been a widow, the children would have been fatherless, there could have been crying but life would go on.

“The truth is that if you have tons of money in the bank, once you die intestate (that is what the lawyers call it), your family would not be able to access your money immediately, their quality of life drops.

“Unfortunately, in our environment, because of the false image we all carry about, relations would think that the man left tons of money. Instead of supporting the family, they would be fighting them to bring the money that the deceased left behind.

“Take care of yourself, keep friends and have faith in God; it is not by might, just by His mercy.”

He also used the occasion to express gratitude to the company nurse, Mr. Theodore Opera, members of the company’s Christian Fellowship and every staff member of the company, urging them to be close to God at all times.

•Sourced from a Vanguard report

•L-R: VANGUARD’s General Manager/Editor-in-Chief, Mr. Gbenga Adefaye; Editor, Mr. Eze Anaba and Deputy Editor, Kunle Adekoya

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