Give Me A Second Chance: My Story

By Emmanuel Gandu

INTRODUCTION
• Have you been confined to prison for weeks, months or years ?
• Have you been confined to the hospital bed due to an illness of life and death situation ?
• Have you been a victim of kidnapping violence for whatever reason ?
• Have you found yourself lost in the forest, wilderness, etc without direction/focus ?
Well, my dear, I’ve been one of these.

MY STORY OF LIFE AND DEATH SITUATION
In September 2014, I was presumed dead for two weeks in the hospital bed in ABUTH Zaria for God knows a sudden sickness. As I lay “dead” in that hospital bed, I could see visions and had dreams approaching somewhere that looked brighter and glittering. While that trance lasted, some beings that appeared in white glittering aparels turned me back, that I was not yet a material for them. At this stage my family, friends and neighbours, as they told me when I came back to life, that they had already begun to think about my obituary. As I regained consciousness after three weeks of admission, I had reduced to a wilting-like vegetable, a scarecrow, and fleshless consignment. Family members and close friends with me in the hospital could hear the sound of the clanging bones as they turned my “lifeless” body from side to side as usually done to a bed-ridden patient.

Miraculously, God didn’t only preserve my mental capacity, He reinvigorated it. As my dry bones lay on the hospital bed, I could hear voices talking to me, ideas running through my mind. I managed to tell my wife through sign language and the little words I could utter to call my good friend Very Rev. Fr. Michael Pius Kagarko to come over to hear my confession. I also signalled her to give me a pen and paper. She thought I wanted to write my will. It was in that frailty that I managed to scribble (un legibly) words and sentences that were running through my mind before they disappear from memory. These words were about life and death. On the second and third day, I managed to translate/transform these words into a poem, a poem on the hospital bed.

On this fateful day, during the usual ward round, the consultant/head of team came near my bed and saw me writing and requested to take a glance. On reading the poem, he enquired if I was the author. Right there, he directed I should be discharged within the next three days. I was subsequently discharged from hospital on 30/9/2014 because I had recovered substantially to continue the healing process at home. Moreover, it was going to be a weekend for both the Muslim Sallah holiday and the 1st October holiday.
From no where this poem to me became a renaissance, rejuvenation, remarkable, and a break from my past easy-going writings. I owe this “reincarnation” to the sickness. My brain was re formated.
And since 2014, this enablement from God made my writings go viral, with radical revolutionary insights.
This 2014 poem which has been in the public domain is titled ‘Life and Death’.

WHY I HAVE PHYSICALLY AVOIDED THE PUBLIC GLARE
Since that 2014 near-death scare, I have not recovered my physique. As I have remained a shadow of myself, I have found it highly embarrassing to throw up myself to the public.
Interestingly, however, my frailty is only on the physical but my intellect has been electrified (so to say) with scholarly vibrancy.

As you might have noticed, God did not only give me a second chance to right the wrongs, He enabled me to make writing my addiction, as I sleep for barely 4 or even less than 2 hours in a day.
Little wonder, one of my Secondary School mate and brother in the Lord once wrote in a comment in the public domain that “you cannot take the pen from Gandu.”

CANDIDO – THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK
My absence from public view which is driven by my fleshless body is becoming a concern to many of my family, friends, community, readers and my followers in the social media.
This hide-and-write syndrome had attracted to me the name of “Candido – the man behind the mask.” Yes, while I accept the name, I also hope to eventually come out in the due ness of time to share the humanness of our humanity.
This is my story, the opportunity of a second chance from God.
Watch out for the poem – Life and Death on Sunday 19/1/2025

WHY SHARING THIS STORY NOW
Tomorrow Saturday 18/1/2025, I will share with you the story of a world renowned giant in his experiences of affliction with one of the most devastating quagmire highlighted in my introductory remarks above.
He is desperately asking God for a second chance. How the mighty are falling.
You will also get to know more life learning lessons you may have not envisaged.
Keep the date – tomorrow.

Peace 🙏
17/1/2025