THISDAYonline

Celebrating personal achievements and successes is no doubt a worthy cause. But when your country decides to honour you in recognition of your contribution to national development, the stakes become higher. For such a recognition and honour, it is not out of place to celebrate.

While some prefer to throw big parties to announce their arrival on the stage, others prefer a quiet and solemn reflection and a thanksgiving service.

For Rev. Engineer I.I Etteh, who was honoured recently with the national honour of the Officer of the Federal Republic, OFR, the story wasn't any different.

Elaborate plans had been made by friends and family members to celebrate this national honour, every arrangement had been made for a grand celebration, but just as preparation had reached final stage, nature played a cruel trick. The man whom everybody was making preparations to celebrate his achievement fell ill. It was supposed to be a minor malaria, but that soon developed into chest arches.

Perhaps a routine medical checkup would do. So Etteh thought, but that happened not to be the case. His Doctor reasoned otherwise. Soon Etteh was put on drip. Soon, he was hallucinating and finally fell into coma.

Few gave him any chance of recovery, but according to him, the illness brought him closer to God.

While in that coma, he had a unique revelation about his immediate family and close friends. Curiously, in that revelation, his very family members and close friends denied his request for Ribena Water. It was at that moment in the revelation that he called on people to come to his aid because he could not understand why members of his family and close friends would deny him anything at that critical moment.

He had just returned from a long vacation with his family in London in December 2001. he got back in January. There was a programme in their church which required one week fasting exercise which he participated. During one of these fasting and prayer days, he developed serious fever, "I thought it was the normal malaria."

His wife was to go to Lagos in the afternoon of Friday December 27 to do some shopping. She bought him Cammoquine, the normal drugs he takes when such fever springs up. "I took it and started feeling faint. I was feeling short of air. I tried to stand up from the bed. This was proving difficult. But I gradually moved from the bed and before I knew it, it seemed like I had passed out".

When he woke up, he found himself on the floor and didn't know how he had managed not to hit his head. He struggled to stand up but realised he was too weak.

So he quickly called his house-help immediately for help. Luckily his younger brother, a resident doctor doing a specialist course was around. It was during this period that UCH doctors were on strike.

Etteh insisted his brother should be alerted about his condition. He explained to his doctor brother when he arrived and in turn, he advised him to lie down a while under the fan. He then took his blood samples for test. He came back with the news of traits of malaria and some infection. By this time he was feeling very weak, he was immediately given a drip after which he felt stronger.

On that Sunday, he was to preach in the church to some women groups who were coming for Thanksgivings "I quickly sent a message to my moderator, that I can't make it because I noticed that that whenever I cough I felt some pains."

When one of the women tried to reverse the car, it made so much noise that his neighbour Prof.. Oyejide who is a medical doctor came out and asked his wife how he was he faring. She explained to him about the chest pain her husband was experiencing. Prof. Oyejide quickly advised he should be taking to the hospital. That it might be pneumonia.

That evening he was admitted in the hospital. The doctor even assured him, he will be out in three days time. He was placed on drip and on Monday he had an X-ray. The X-rays results revealed that the right side of his lungs had been infected and was not functioning properly, the doctor said within three days everything will clear "but everyday I was feeling weaker and weaker".

On Tuesday, he started hearing organ music, then he called his wife and asked could such a church be around this place? She replied that there is a small church around but nobody is inside it. "Are you sure?" he asked her. Engr. Etteh insisted that there was an Organ music playing around, and Mrs. Etteh also tried to convince him that it could be from his imagination; and he gave up.

Later on, he realised that immediately he closes his eyes, he starts hallucinating, he sees all sorts of things "was travelling all the time, sometimes people will come drumming, and trying to come and welcome me. I couldn't sleep. I told my wife to put on the light because I thought the place has been invaded by all sorts of demons. I mean, as we are living here, there are other beings that are living with us".

For sometime he could not sleep at night, and that continued. he would pray, bind and bind, there was still no changes. "it was not that they were there, it is just that my eyes opened. If your eyes are open, as you hear and walking there are other beings that are there".

By Thursdays, his wife was worried and decided to ask another doctors' opinion. She called her friend Prof. Essien in Uyo, an animatologist. After listening to his wife's explanation, Prof. Essien arrived at the fact that Engr. Etteh was being treated with a first generation anti-biothics. he phoned Prof.. Oyedeji and Prof. Akinkugbe and everybody, raising hell and alerting them about his condition.

By Friday, his condition became critical and by Saturday he had slipped into a coma. "I think according to them because I don't remember what happened, they said that they took my blood sample to carry out analysis and they found out that my blood sugar had gone to four hundred. My blood pressure was about 2.30 or 130, to them I was conscious on the other side."

While he was sick the only thing he could take then was Ribena water. In that realm, he saw a lot of people he knew arranged in a line. All his friends and family members in including vulnerable Komalafe of Emmanuel College, his moderator, wife and even nephew Ebim etc. were all on the line, the only person absent was his elder Prof. Etteh who recently was also awarded a national honours late last year.

He asked and pleaded with each of them on the line to give him water or Ribena water to drink. They all rejected him and bluntly refused to offer him water. And he was so thirsty. he turned to the Lord Jesus and said "you see this people I know they all love me and will do anything to make sure I have life and here they are denying me this Ribena water, then the Lord said to me that thing is taking your life, he then said I give you life. Immediately I descended. Immediately I came back to life, instantly I declared that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord". The doctor didn't go that night, he was present with his wife when he came out of Coma. And they both responded amen as he shouted out of coma "Jesus is Lord and he has given me victory."

His experience was traumatic. He was hypentensive, he was diabetic and finally they said he had tuberculosis. He referred to the Holy Bible where Paul said, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the holy spirit because there is nobody whether unconscious or who is in a coma that can wake up and say Jesus is Lord except your love had an encounter.

"This Jesus we talk about, a lot of People think it is just a figment of imagination but it is real". Engr. Etteh was moved to another hospital where a random test was done on him and his blood pressure result came out normal. Prof. Akinkugbe, a Specialist on hypertension, came on Monday evening to visit him and assured him that his blood pressure was very normal.

The next problem that was raised was the diabetes issue. he was placed on a diet "I insisted that I was not diabetic, three days after he studied my condition, I was discharged from the hospital. Doctor still wanted my diabetic diet to continue, I said to him it is the lie of the devil, that I am not diabetic".

After he was discharged he went back for his medical medial check up, and they discovered he was not a diabetic patient.

But there was the tuberculosis issue. Two weeks after he was discharged, he went for X-ray. Etteh told the doctors that he is free of the aliments despite the fact that the infection on his lungs had not cleared properly. The doctors started pointing at tuberculosis and wanted to place him on treatment. They did the test, which was the quickest way of finding out if one had the aliment, the result came out negative, but the doctors felt that since the infection had not cleared, that it might be pointing to tuberculosis.

"I told them that I don't have or work in an environment that I could be infected with tuberculosis some of these young doctors can send a patient to an early grave".

End of the day, he followed the doctors advised and was placed on a tuberculosis treatment "I was still not satisfied and kept on telling the doctors that I don't have tuberculosis. His nephew Ebim and the other workers in his office told him he must not came to the office. "they decided to confine me to my house, I am not a man who can be confine to inactivity so I did not feel very comfortable".

Etteh decided to go to London for another proper rediagnosis test on his body. And the doctors told him that he didn't have any tuberculosis infections, that the infection could have cleared even if he was taking any drugs. He got back to Nigeria and told the doctor, he wasn't going to continue the medication again, that was how God has saved his life from the clutches of death which he strongly believed was a spiritual attack.

Before all these death encounter, "I saw the sign. "I didn't think it would be sickness. God told me to read Psalm 11 what has happened it is the message that God gave to him because he has said, he does not do anything without revealing it to his prophet".

There is nothing that God wants to do without revealing it to at least one of his prophets, "like in Nigeria today, there's nothing that will happen whether now or in 2003 that God will not reveal to one of his prophets but you see politicians will not listen. God will always warn us in advance and prepare us. In that Psalm God has said he will bring me back from the pit and that is precisely what happened".

"This experience has strengthened my faith in the God that I worship. Firstly, to achieve my purpose on earth, for it would have been disaster. Etteh Aro and Partners and so on would have been an unfinished business, probably all that my late partner and myself could have just wasted but you see that is why I think with other things that God wants me to do that he has given me life and when Jesus gives us life nobody can take it".

What was suppose to be his national honours celebration last year, turned out to be a sojurn in a hospital. "I almost lost my life;" His family, friends and well wishers still insisted the party must go on after his journey through the land of death.

Engr. Etteh I.I. Etteh who was born in 1935 is a Principal partner of Etteh Aro and Pa rtners, one of Nigeria most leading Civil Structural and Environmental Engineering Firms. Etteh Aro and Partner was founded April 1970 by him and his late partner Lawrence Arokodare.

Etteh Aro and Partners have been involved in a lot of gigantic projects like the CBN headquarters building in Abuja, Unipetrol head office in Victoria Island, the UBA building, Lagos, Union Bank building Port Harcourt, Sultan Bello Mosque, Sokoto. He hails form Upenekang-Ibeno, in Ibeno local government area of Akwa-Ibom State. In 1997, he was licensed and in 1998, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister, and the name of the Church where he ministers is called the Tenth Ministry. It was in a 1958 that he had an encounter with Christ, after reading a book called "why I'm a Christian" by C.S. Lewis. "That day I had a vision that I was going to be a Minister of God." He is married to Elizabeth Ibia Etteh, they have a son, Akpanoluo and a daughter Nkaepe.