In the same country where a Catholic bishop was told by Jesus to pray the Rosary for the defeat of the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, a Nigerian tycoon has courageously erected a 40-ton marble statue of Jesus to bring the message of peace to his embattled nation.
Fox News is reporting on the erection of the statue, which towers 30 feet above the grounds of St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Abajah, Nigeria.
An oil and gas magnate named Obinna Onuoha, who attended Harvard Business School, underwrote the building and erection of the statue after having a dream about creating such a monument nearly 20 years ago.
When asked why he felt compelled to do this, he told Christian Headlines: “Asking why I constructed this statue is like asking how do I came to this world, I am a Christian and a Catholic and Jesus statue represents my faith. I believe we are here on earth for different purposes and each person moves with his/her instincts, and I was motivated to do this to build up the faith of this community.”
Dubbed “Jesus the Greatest”, the statue has been in the making since 2013 when Onuoha commissioned a Chinese company to carve it out of white marble.
Barefoot and with arms outstretched, the status is now the largest monument to Jesus on the African continent and Onuoha believes it will draw pilgrims from all over.
The unveiling of the statue, which occurred on New Year’s Day before a crowd of 1,000 people, was a joyous day in a nation that has been torn by sectarian strife and the murderous actions of the radical Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram. The group is perhaps best known for the kidnap of more than 276 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok, many of whom have reportedly been sold as sex slaves. The ISIS-allied group is responsible for killing hundreds and displacing millions in its quest to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria where the population is half Christian and half Muslim.
The erection of the statue represents a new triumph for this long-suffering population. It comes a little more than a year after Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of the Diocese of Maiduguri in the hard-hit Borno state received a powerful message from Jesus while in prayer. In the message, Jesus appeared and handed him a sword. When he reached out to take it, it turned into a rosary. The Lord then told him three times: “Boko Haram is gone.”
Bishop Doeme has full confidence that the group is on its way to defeat and believes that one day his diocese will recover from the horror of these days, thanks to Mary’s intercession.
“These terrorists… think that by burning our churches, burning our structures, they will destroy Christianity. Never,” the bishop said during a conference in Spain last year. “It may take a few months or a few years … but ‘Boko Haram is gone.’”
That day can’t come soon enough; but in the meantime, the erection of this statue is giving Our Lord a towering new presence in that part of the world.
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