Photos: Pastor Lived With Python For 10 Years In Calabar

                                                          

 Reverend Tony Amba

It is truly a ‘September to remember’ for Reverend Tony Amba, the senior pastor of MegaFaith Ministries in Calabar, Cross River state.

 The residents of Ekpiken Close, the pastor and his family are still in a great shock of the extraordinary experience that happened  last weekend.

The man of God had  left the house for a meeting with his father-in-the-Lord, leaving his household behind. Unknown to him, they have been living in the same house with a 19 –year-old python, which is 20-metre long. Further revelations made it known that the huge snake feeds on dogs, fowls, rats and lizards for long without him and the children knowing they had a strange co-dweller. However, when he left the house on the fateful day, the snake decide to come out of its hideout and use one of the children for its next meal.
 Amba explained to Niger Delta Voice saying: “Two of my children were home alone when they saw that a something like a machete was piercing through the ceiling so they ran out of the house. Fortunately, one of our members was coming to the house at that time, and he is the one, who inquired from them what the matter was and they told him what they noticed in the ceiling.”

                                                  
“In trying to find out if there was someone with a machete in the ceiling because the opening made was quite obvious, they set up a form of ladder to climb and look into the place, but saw something that looked like a tyre, but they discovered it was shining. They decided to use a bigger torch light, what they saw was a python and they were shocked.”
“I just came back from a journey where I went to see my father in the lord in Abuja and also attended a conference there. My coming into Calabar was to prepare for our yearly programme, ‘September to Remember,’ but before coming back, I already knew that a battle had been won because God is always in control.”

“The occurrence did not come as a surprise but it was not natural, because what could the snake be possibly eating for those years it has spent in that place, it is indeed a September to remember for me ,my family and the MegaFaith Ministries. When I was alerted, I decided to call the police so that they can kill it because I am not the kind of person, who reads meaning to every little thing. But they refused, arguing that they could kill it and it transforms into a human being based on the incident that led to its discovery, so they left without doing anything.”
The pastor further continued by narrating how he was directed to some Hausa snake charmers from Bogobiri. After inviting them, he continued by saying: ”When they came (the Mallams), they first went into the ceiling to ascertain the size of the snake and came down to tell me that they will collect N60,000, but we bargained till they came down to N20,000, which we paid. I left them to continue the work of my Father because I had communion to administer that evening.”

                                                    
He said before he could come back back, the snake had been killed by the snake charmers but the area boys prevented them from taking it away.  An eyewitness who spoke on the condition of anonymity however told Niger Delta Voice that the snake almost disappeared after they (Mallams) led by Danzaria Rabiu climbed the ceiling the second time to kill it.
“When one of the ‘aboki’ climbed the ceiling, they could not find the snake anymore, so they started breaking the ceiling all over and the creature fell down in fury, started attacking them, but the four of them over powered the about 20 meters long creature. The incident was really strange although there is a little bush behind us, but it still does not explain how the snake entered and have been living for years, how did it survive for that long in that place, what was it feeding on? he asked.
However, the man who led the snake killers, Mallam Rabiu, said that the snake was not an ordinary snake and has lived long in that hideout because of the bones that were seen in its hideout. Speaking in Pidgin English, he said:  “The snake don live there for a very long time don live there for up to 10 years and when we kill am. I discover from the counting say the snake don live up to 19 years. There is a way we dey take count the mark wey dey the belle to know how long the snake don live.”
“The snake enter there when e still dey small , na for there wey the snake stay grow because we see different kind of fowl , rat ,lizard and dog bones, that na wetin we see for inside that ceiling be that. When we come inside the ceiling the second timer, we did not see the snake again. We come begin break the ceiling before the thing come fall down. With the kind things wey dey our body, the snake no suppose attack us. I surprise when e begin open mouth to bite us.”