An 84 year-old religious leader has an unusual hobby. Over the past 70 years he has been collecting wives. He is proud of his massive collection of 86 wives and 172 Mothers-in-law- some of whom, he has maintained for more than 30 years.
However after fathering 170 children, he has decided to call it a day. The former religious and sex-education teacher Mohammadu Bello Abubakar, told In Seine News;
"I should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the 'most married man in the world', but now I'm going for another new world record - the 'most divorced man in the world'. Life for me has had its 'ups and downs' - I've had many sleepless nights having to feed up to 10 children for 50 years or so and now it will have to stop because I need my sleep."
The devout cleric, Mr Abubakar had challenged Islamic scholars, saying there was no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives, except perhaps multiple Mothers-in-Law, but none of his have been quarrelsome.
Only last week, under Sharia Law, the poor chap was sentenced to death by one of Nigeria's top Islamic bodies, the Jamatu Nasril Islam; only to have the sentence lifted on condition that he accepted an Islamic decree ordering him to divorce all but four of them. Local authorities say that although the death sentence was quashed, he was threatened with eviction from his 10-storey block of flats in Lagos.
Again, a very angry Abubakar said;
"It is a great shame for my country to do this to me. I don't know which 82 to divorce - I love them all dearly; and all I was doing was trying to repopulate Nigeria. Some of my sons are already running Internet scams and some of them have run in the Olympics. Oh boy does it make you proud to be a father?"
The death sentence was believed to have been instigated by a rogue Mother-in-Law.
