Retired soldier Dies and Resurrect After Three Days In Mortuary, Recounts Ordeal

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The story of retired soldier, Kayode Sotunde, is akin to biblical Jesus Christ who died and resurrected after three days. But differently, the 49-year-old man was neither on a rescue mission like Messiah who paid the debt he did not owe nor was coerced to go through the Calvary tortures like Jesus did for the sake of humanity.

However, the story of this man who returned from the great beyond is worth celebrating.

Continue After The Break.

April 11 this year, Sotunde embarked on a journey from Gboko, in Benue State to Kano, but unfortunately, the bus conveying the ex-soldier crashed on the way, claiming him and 17 others passengers on board.

However, Sotunde woke up three days after in the mortuary, where his body and others were deposited for their families to claim for burial.

According to the ‘old soldier’ who refuses to die, his corpse was taken out of the mortuary and was being prepared for burial when he suddenly came back to life.

He narrated his experience to Sunday Sun in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Excerpts of the interview:

Journey from Gboko to mortuary

On that fateful day, that was April 11, 2013, I was travelling from Gboko to Kano to see my younger brother, Jide Sotunde, a soldier serving in Kano. We had agreed on the journey which we had thought would afford us to discuss important issues, including the possibilities of getting another job that would not be too far from where I had my wife.

I retired from the Nigerian Army, (Supply and Transport), Apapa Lagos where I served for 30 years, during which I also participated in many peace keeping force assignments outside Nigeria.

After retirement, I got a job as a security guard at the Dangote Cement, Gboko, Benue State from where I also resigned because of the distance of my workplace and where my family was based in Osogbo.

The ill-fated vehicle was an 18-seater passenger bus, which I boarded in Gboko en-route Kano. We were barely two hours into the journey when a passenger asked us to pray. Since it was a normal thing for a passenger to offer to pray on such a long journey, I did not heed his call. I was just playing with my mobile phone set.

Aside from that, I didn’t believe in the prayer since I didn’t know anything about Jesus Christ. I was a freethinker who neither went to church nor worshipped any idol. We were making progress on the journey when suddenly there was a bang. That was all I could recollect about the journey until I woke up three days after in the mortuary of the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Kano where I was told that I died in an accident and my corpse along with other 17 passengers were deposited there.

Even though the hospital authorities told me that I was in their morgue for three days as a dead man, I actually spent more days there before I could regain my senses.

I was to be buried in Kano

I was told that before I returned from the land of the dead, my family had instructed my younger brother who I was visiting in Kano before the accident to bury me in Kano since they could not afford the N150,000, which was said to have been requested by transporters to take my corpse from Kano to Abeokuta. My elder sister, Moradeke Sotunde played a prominent role in this regard.

I was also told that it was at the point that my corpse was being prepared for interment that suddenly I returned to the land of the living after my corpse was taken out of the mortuary for prayers by Islamic clerics who were said to have sprinkled water on my corpse preparatory to my burial. I was also told that my hair was also shaved as demanded by the clerics.

I was told that my corpse was taken out of the mortuary after they had dug my grave and organised some clerics to offer the funeral prayers.

They wanted to bury me in Kano because my family members couldn’t afford N150,000 demanded for carrying my corpse to Abeokuta for burial. The initial plan was to move my corpse back home to Abeokuta, where a grave had been dug but for the transportation cost.

Life in the land of the dead

My brother, truly, there is life after death. I can also tell you that there is a living God. You may not believe me, but I am a living witness to this. I may not be able to describe Heaven or Hell, but there is another life after this one that we are living.

This place I am talking about is full of snow. I may not have been to America, but I have heard about snow. Where we were was full of snow, with plenty of something that I can describe as alum stones; whitish in colour with something I can describe as granite in this physical world. In spite of the terrible cold, there was no day that we felt cold and it was never harmful to us.

All of us were there without knowing whether we are male or female. We couldn’t see our eyes, mouth and nose. We had no leg; we had no arm, but we floated in the air without our bodies touching the ground. We were flying around what I will describe as another planet.

On the third day of my arrival on the strange planet, they gave me a message that we were expecting one big prophet.

After the message was delivered, they nominated ushers among us to welcome the prophet. And seconds later, people started trooping in, jubilating as if a goal was just scored in a football match