By Patrick Ochei
Ada Anioma, immediate past Delta State Commissioner for Technical Education, Hon. Joan Onyemaechi has charged individuals to take each day of their lives as their last day, insisting that nobody on earth has the power to control what happens to him or her except God says otherwise.
She made this assertion while testifying to the goodness and mercy of God over her safe return after 10 days of captivity in the kidnappers’ den.
Ada Anioma during her thanksgiving celebration at the Mountain of Fire Ministries, Asaba on Sunday 1st of September, 2024, declared that those who kidnapped her were not the wicked ones in her case but those who trade in peddling fake news against innocent persons doing their jobs or fulfilling their destinies.
According to the daring politician who at a point broke down emotionally, “I wish to humbly and respectfully appreciate God for seeing me through the travails of being kidnapped. I also thank those of you from all walks of life who have come to identify with me. My sermon today is that we must take each day of our lives as our last day. This is because, it could be your last. In the past, I used to say God forbid on hearing this kind of sermon.
“Before the unfortunate incident, I was at a church where I had gone to minister, and I was led to take up a prayer point against funeral procession heading towards my home. I didn’t know I was praying for myself, even though I was challenging women with that prayer point.
“The Tuesday before the Tuesday service that I was kidnapped, I was literarily weeping in my spirit. I didn’t know why I was weeping. And on that fateful day too, I woke up that morning with a song in my heart ‘I have a very big God, A very big God o, He no dey fall my hand, He’s always by my side, a very big God’. It was later that day that the song made sense to me.
“In that boat when I was being ferried to an unknown destination, I heard Him clearly again, saying ‘I am by your side, I told you earlier I would be with you’. I could have died of a heartache, but as soon as He spoke to me, I said GOD, give me wisdom and courage.
“I want to say that I am here today by the mercies of God. I don’t know why but He said, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. He gave me a second chance to life.
“Why praying that He should deliver me, He said, change it to deliver us. Those who did the kidnapping didn’t know me from Adams, neither do I know them; they were just business people working on information. Those who kidnapped me are not the wicked ones but those who are engaged in selling others to the public market. We must mind what we say about other people. This is because the information you give may not be the right one but an agenda to destroy the person’s hard-work”, Ada Anioma narrated.
Meanwhile, at the point of relaying what transpired before she was abducted, Ada Anioma broke down and wept. She wept at the mention of the names of her two aides who were murdered in a bid to take her – an Inspector of Police, Adamu and a pilot driver, Isaac respectively.
She said Adamu, a native of Sokoto State had two wives and six children, who are now without a husband and a father, while Isaac had a father and a brother who was in the Thanksgiving service. I may have been spared by the mercies of God, but we may need to ask who killed Isaac and Adamu? These people didn’t do anything, but they fell as a result of the information sold out about me to business men who had set up their businesses either for the right or the wrong motives.
In addition to her testimony, the Delta State Government, represented by the Deputy Governor, Sir Monday Onyeme congratulated Ada Anioma for her freedom, thanking God for sparing her precious life for the State and society in particular.
He said, “We join Ada Anioma on behalf of the people of Delta State to give thanks to God. The level of insecurity in different parts of the country calls for concern. We are by this medium calling on Federal Government to arrest the situation.
“Delta is relatively peaceful. We will continue to rely on God for a peaceful and secure State. We celebrate and congratulate Ada Anioma for her safe return”, Onyeme said.
It was a State Thanksgiving as the who-in-who in government, traditional institutions, different religious bodies, persons with disabilities and orphanages were present to worship God with Ada Anioma in thanksgiving.
