Reinhart Bonnke is a powerful man of God. He oversees Christ for all Nations Ministries, ministering all over the world, with reports of many salvations and miracles.

On the morning of November 30, 2001, Daniel Ekechukwu, the pastor of Power Chapel Evangelical Church in Onitsha, Nigeria, with his friend Kingsley Iruka, took a Christmas present of a goat to his father in a village near the town of Owerri. On the way home, going down a steep road, the brakes failed on Daniel’s 20-year-old

Mercedes 230. Gathering speed, it hurtled downhill and smashed into a stone pillar.
Without a seat belt, Daniel was catapulted violently forward. His head hit the windshield, and the steering wheel knob punched into his body. Iruka, shocked though not badly hurt, turned to Daniel, hoping all was well. But the sight appalled him. Blood was pouring from Daniel’s nose from a head injury, and then he began vomiting blood from heavy internal hemorrhage.Rescue presently came. Marvelously, Daniel held up until he was placed in the local hospital’s intensive care, or the best Nigerian equivalent of it. His wife, Nneka, was sent for. She found Daniel still alive but just barely. He hung on to life to ask her to have him taken to his family doctor’s hospital in Owerri, a very serious mistake. It meant anything but a smooth ride of one and a half hours. Within minutes of being lifted into the ambulance, Daniel felt himself dying. He tried to whisper his last words and instructions to Nneka. But his speech slurred, became incoherent, and stopped as he drifted into unconsciousness. The ambulance driver pushed on at full speed, however, warning sirens blaring. Reaching the Owerri Regional Hospital, they ran in shouting, “Emergency! Emergency!” Daniel’s doctor was not on duty, so a member of the medical staff took charge and checked Daniel’s limp form. He turned to Nneka with a sad face. He could only certify that Daniel was already dead. Naturally, Nneka was shocked. But a Bible verse had been ringing in her mind from Hebrews 11: Women received their dead raised to life again. Then a non-rational conviction seized her: This meant her!

The text in Nneka’s head made it impossible for her to accept the plain evidence that Daniel had gone or allow him to be buried. Her agitation dictated that something must be done. But at 11:30 P.M., when they brought Daniel’s body to Dr. Jossy Anuebunisa at the St. Eunice Clinic, he confirmed the death. From there the body was taken to the Ikeduru General Hospital Mortuary, not far away. The resident mortician, Mr. Barlington R. Manu, carried out the normal checks at 1:00 A.M. Saturday. The mortuary having no cold storage facilities, the mortician administered the usual chemical preservative injection and prepared the body for embalming on the following morning. With a staff member he laid the body out on a mortuary slab between two other dead people. Everyone then retired for the night.

Convinced her husband would live again, Nneka wanted the body taken to the church in Onitsha where Reinhard Bonnke was to speak at a dedication ceremony of the Grace of God Ministries. So the next morning, Sunday, December 2, they went to take the body from the mortuary. But the mortician was worried about their intentions. To hide the fact that a body was being taken away, he dressed it for a funeral as a pretext, placed it in a coffin, and shut the lid. They took Daniel in his coffin and set off on the long drive to Onitsha.

Arriving at the Onitsha church compound, the State security officer and the ushers saw them driving up with a coffin and ordered them to turn around and leave. But Nneka pled and persisted, so after checking the coffin for a terrorist bomb, they relented and allowed the body to be taken out and carried into the church, but only the downstairs part. The church bishop’s son Paul and another pastor on the church staff, Bathcomery Nkwando, laid the body on a table and found that rigor mortis had made the limbs “stiff as an iron rod,” they said. Two other staff pastors, Lawrence Onyeka and Luke Ibekwe, joined them to guard the body. Upstairs, meanwhile, Bonnke went on preaching and praying with no knowledge of the body downstairs.

Before long, the pastors noticed a slight twitching of the stomach of the corpse. Then they saw the corpse draw a breath and begin breathing, in short bursts. Encouraged, they called for a video camera and threw themselves into powerful petitionary prayer, stripped the body of the mortuary gloves, socks, and shirt and began massaging it from head to foot. As this news broke out in the sanctuary above, it created pandemonium.

Then at 5:15 P.M., nearly two days after his death, Daniel opened his eyes, sat up, and leaned on Pastor Lawrence. People began crowding into the hall to see this resurrection man. Lawrence was worried Daniel would not have enough oxygen, so he carried him into the church sanctuary where Daniel spoke for the first time since his death: “Water! Water!” They gave him sips and then warm tea. To give him a clear space, they seated him on a chair on the platform, where hundreds of people saw him slowly recovering. He had not yet collected his thoughts, and for a while could not recognize anyone, not even his own son. By evening, however, he was fully coherent.  Daniel is 100% lucid today.