Can the Black Madonna Save Nigeria?

The more I see the world, the more I fall in love with my dear country. No matter how sick Nigeria seems to be, I am beginning to think that it is the best country in the world. She only needs to get a few things right to be on top of the world.

I was so worried about Nigeria that I had to go to a prayer mountain far away in Barcelona, Spain, to seek the face of God for intervention in Nigeria. If you ask the average Nigerian what they know about Barcelona, they will probably only mention Messi and Camp Nou. However, there is a popular deity believed to have saved Spain from tribulations a couple of times. She sits on a mountain close to Barcelona, and they call her the **Black Madonna**.

The Black Madonna, a Romanesque polychrome carving, is believed to have been sculpted in Jerusalem around the 12th century. It is one of the most famous Black Madonna statues in the world. In 1844, Pope Leo XIII declared the Virgin of Montserrat the patroness of Catalonia. It was believed that she saved the monastery from the Swedish invasion and siege of 1655. She was also credited with defeating a Russian attack in 1920. You won’t blame me for going to plead with the lady to save Nigeria from our numerous predicaments.

Maybe my upbringing is affecting me. When I was in secondary school, pastors and churches were respected and revered, unlike today. I remember the first time I went to an interdenominational prayer mountain for a Friday night vigil. They called that mountain **Ori Oke Basiribasiri** (“The mountain where God covers our shameful secrets”), located in Akure, where I grew up. As a secondary school boy, all my prayers were dutifully answered on that mountain, and I started believing that God answers prayers on the mountain more than on the plain.

I was attending a public secondary school until my JSS3. I so much desired to go to one of the unity schools, which were the standard schools of those days. I prayed that Friday night that God would miraculously send me to a unity school. I came home the following morning, Saturday, and was sleeping after the night vigil when my father came to wake me up and asked if I would like to write the Unity exam that very morning. I was shocked!

It turned out that a man had brought his two daughters from the village to write the exam and had no place to stay except my father’s house. We would never have known about the exam if that man hadn’t brought his daughters to our house that fateful night. My father asked him how he got the forms for his daughters. The man said they would pay for the form at the exam venue, as he hadn’t gotten the forms yet. How coincidental—or was it the prayers of the night before? That’s how I went for the exam without any preparation. I wrote the exam and forgot about it. My father never went to check the result. Someone told him at his workplace one month later that they saw my name on the admission list. I came second in the whole state among over 500 applicants. Guess what? The two ladies who made me aware of the exam didn’t pass. That was the beginning of my belief in the efficacy of mountaintop prayers. So, you can appreciate my enthusiasm when I set out on a similar adventure decades later, this time in faraway Barcelona.

I started my journey early in the morning from Barcelona to climb the highest summit of Montserrat, the mountain that houses the monastery where the Black Madonna resides. The summit sits at 4,055 feet above sea level. This time, I decided to climb the hill via a funicular. The views were spectacular, and it was an incredible experience. There is a lot of history behind the monastery, but I will focus on my encounter with the lady.

I was on the queue for close to an hour, passing through an intricately sculptured yet ancient basilica, filled with awe and reverence. When I finally met the Black Madonna, I was both amazed and disappointed. Is this small statue what attracts millions of pilgrims monthly? I had heard about the many miracles attributed to an encounter with the Black Madonna, no doubt. However, the statue looked so ordinary that if it were located anywhere in Nigeria, all the Pentecostal churches—including Pastor Adeboye’s and Oyedepo’s—would be daily cursing the people who visited it, calling it idolatry. You could say she resembles **Yeye Osun** of Osogbo. The funny part is, the statue is even black. Does this mean that **Mary, the Virgin**, was a black woman? I guess the worshippers didn’t want to attribute anything good to blacks, so they came up with an explanation. They said the statue wasn’t originally painted black, but over time, due to wear and tear, it turned black. Very convenient! Let’s wait and see whether the **Mona Lisa** will also turn black. I don’t believe that theory at all, but how else would Spain explain that a black woman’s statue saved them from the Russians in 1920?

Anyway, I finally held the hand of the Black Madonna. I had a personal discussion with her. My only request: *May President Tinubu “get it right.”* May Nigeria be great again. My group later lit a candle to seal the prayer, as tradition demanded.

I met thousands of people from all over the world, coming to pay homage and receive blessings from the Black Madonna. Everywhere I turn, all over the world, I see millions of tourists patronizing places that look so ordinary. I keep wondering, what is wrong with my dear Nigeria? When will tourists start queuing to see **Idanre Hills**? When will they come to learn the famous history of **OluA**, a popular deity in my hometown who is also attributed with a lot of miracles? When will Nigeria get it right?

As I descended from Montserrat in the funicular, the only question going through my mind was: **Will the Black Madonna save the most populous black nation?**

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