The residents of Kubwa, a community on the outskirts of Abuja, got the shock of their lives when an unusual incident involving a businessman occurred about two weeks ago.
The businessman, Edward Asuelimen, had woken up in the morning of July 16 with severe pain in his stomach.
“I woke up a few minutes after 5 am. In less than two hours, I had visited the toilet four times. Then I felt excruciating pain in my stomach. It got to a point where I could hardly prepare my children for school,” Asuelimen recounts.
Even his wife was very worried. But he managed to pull himself together and left their home with the children.
Halfway to the children’s school, the pain became unbearable and he decided to get some drugs from a store on the way.
Yet, a few minutes later, Asuelimen barely managed to walk out of the store by gripping the walls for support.
“I prayed hard to get back home. Anybody who saw me at that point wouldn’t have believed that there was something wrong with me,” he says.
He kept praying and fighting the pain raging in his stomach until he got home. He was so weak that he could not step out of his car.
Asuelimen’s wife was alarmed at his condition. She suggested that he should seek medical attention in a hospital after he gasped and said, “Help me quickly, I can’t breathe.”
The businessman had no choice other than to listen to his wife. Eventually, he was admitted at Unity Clinic and Maternity Home, which was nearby.
At intervals, his panic-stricken wife called out his name just to be sure that he was still alive.
“I had never experienced that kind of pain before. I was merely hanging on with all my strength and faith in God. At the hospital, the medical director and his staff were already having their morning devotion.
“When my wife called the doctor and he helped me to come out of my car, the only thing I could say was, ‘my tommy, my tummy’ I was given an injection and somebody stayed with me, all the while praying as the rest continued the morning devotion.
“The Holy Spirit pushed me to speaking in tongues at that point. Not long afterwards, I felt a strong urge to vomit and I did.”
Asuelimen vomited two live lizards in the hospital. The incident however caused consternation among members of the staff of the hospital and other patients present.
“When my wife tried to get something to clean my mouth and pack it, I saw a lizard crawling out from the vomit on the ground. The nurse that attended to me saw another one and wanted to kill it,” he says.
When he saw the lizards, the first thought that struck him was that he had been poisoned. But the pain ceased after he vomited the reptiles. The doctor told him that he had just received divine healing.
“I got well almost instantly. Even I joined the hospital staff in burning the lizards. I went home had my bath and continued the day’s business as if nothing had happened to me,” he says.
The news of the event spread like wildfire. Soon Asuelimen started receiving phone calls from his friends, relatives, neighbours and associates. They congratulated him for surviving a close shave with death.
Eventually, the incident became the talk among the residents of Kubwa. Everybody seemed to be mystified and for some time, they discussed the incident in hushed tones.
The lizards are sstill the subject of debate in the community and the residents are torn between accepting the mystery and waving it aside, since they are convinced that it cannot be proved scientifically.
But Asuelimen says, “I am not a medical doctor, and I know that it cannot be proved scientifically. I know that faith is older and stronger than science. The faith we are talking about is God himself. God is the creator of the universe, so invention and science itself is dependent on God.
“Some things are real and beyond proof. We don’t have to subject God’s miracle and existence to scrutiny. It does not make sense because I know there are many things that God can do, which science cannot prove. I am talking about divine healing and miracles in particular. The fact that science cannot prove it does not mean they are not real.”
The Medical Director of Unity Clinic and Maternity, Dr. Stephen Nwaedozie, confirmed the incident. He says, “When I got to the car, I saw Edward writhing in pain. I brought him out of the vehicle and attended to him. We started praying for him. Not long afterwards, my nurses told me that he had vomited lizards.
“I personally burnt the lizards and poured anointing oil on them and buried the carcasses. As soon as we did that, the man recovered from the stomach pain. He is a child of God and with faith he told them to bring him to my hospital and when he came here, God delivered him. So we praise God.”
Nwaedozie admitted that there was no way science could explain the appearance of the lizards in Asuelimen’s vomit. “If I was not there and it didn’t happen right before me, I won’t believe. So that is why we have to tell the world the truth,” he says.
-Courtesy Punch