By Lawrence Nwimo
Newly appointed Permanent Secretary in the Anambra State Ministry of Trade and Commerce, Barr. Samuel Ike has expressed his gratitude to God, who he said, saved him from a life cockroach that mysteriously entered his ear.
At a thanksgiving services held at St. James Anglican Church, Iyiowa Odekpe, Ogbaru Local Government Area, Ike said the cockroach lived in his ear for four months and had wanted to penetrate his brain to cause havoc before it was successfully removed.
“I am not only here to thank God over my recent appointment as a Permanent Secretary. I want to thank Him because if not Him, I would have died before now. When I was driving one day, I noticed that something was moving in my ear. It was a medium sized cockroach. I don’t know how it penetrated into my ear. It lived in my ear for four months.
Barr. Samuel Ike (white), his wife and others during the thanksgiving service
“I visited a hospital at Obosi for months before it was successfully removed from my ear. And when they brought it out, the coakroach was still alive. The doctor told me I would have run mad if it had succeeded in gaining entrance into my brain. It was brought out alive and killed by us,” he said.
The permanent Secretary also recalled other several experiences he passed through before his present appointment to include having sleepless night for four days, and circumstances that would have turned him into a cripple barely a week of his appointment.
Speaking in an interview after the service, the Anambra State Head of Service, Barr. Harry Uduh, urged the new permanent Secretary to continue on his diligence to service as God would reward him more.
Earlier in a sermon, the Anglican Bishop, Aguata Diocese, Most Rev. Samuel Nwofor, who presided over the service amidsts other clergies and prelates, charged Nigerians to always give thanks to God irrespectively of circumstances they found themselves.
The Bishop urged the congregation to shun life of complaints and comparison with others and and embrace gratitude to God for the things they have achieved in life.