Baba Masaba: Nigeria’s most polygamous man who married 130 wives

The most polygamous man in Nigeria is Mohammed Bello Abubakar popularly known as Baba Masaba.

He lived in Niger State. According to verifiable and credible reports, he married at least 130 women and fathered over 200 children. Baba Masaba was a former Muslim preacher, traditional healer, and religious leader and he died in 2017 at the ripe old age of 93!

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Despite being surrounded by 130 wives, Baba Masaba lived a long life, and many wonder how he managed to maintain his health and energy while caring for such a large family. Masaba told BBC that:

A man with ten wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them.

Masaba was unknown until 2008 when Nigerian authorities and Islamic scholars took issue with his unusual polygamous lifestyle. Islamic law allows a man to marry up to four wives, and even then the husband is required to treat all wives equally and be just to all (emotionally as well as financially).

The Bida Emirate Council directed him to divorce 82 of the wives then (he had 86 wives at that time) and be left with only four, but he refused saying his numerous marriages were divinely sanctioned. His wives, many of whom had initially sought his help for spiritual or medical issues, claimed to have willingly married him. This led to his arrest in 2008.

He was charged with insulting or exciting to contempt of religious creed, deceitfully inducing belief of lawful marriage and marriage ceremony without lawful marriage as well as keeping 86 women illegally against Islamic laws contrary to Sections 210, 383 and 386 of the Penal Code respectively.

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While he was in detention, some of his wives and children staged a protest. One of the children involved in the protest then, Moroof Bello, described their father as a God-fearing man, saying,

As a God-fearing man who has been keeping all of us under the same roof peacefully for many years, I don’t see any reason anybody, including government, should be worried about our family. They should leave us alone because nobody is capable of taking good care of us except baba.

He was later released and he continued to live peacefully with his wives and children until he died in 2017. At the time of his death, Masaba had 130 surviving wives and 203 children. The youngest of the children was about one year old while seven of the wives were pregnant.

Baba Masaba was also a spiritual leader of the Halihumot Nabiyi Islamic Organisation of Nigeria which had many followers from around the world. Speaking about his successor, the Personal Assistant and Secretary to the late cleric, Alhaji Mutairu Bello, said:

There is no tussle; Baba Masaba cautioned us when he was alive about it – there are talks and warning about it. This is not like every other society or group where they can select or pick somebody; we are waiting for when Allah will raise a successor.

In 2019, two years after his death, Punch reported that Masaba’s brother, Alhaji Abubakar Bello was acting as the leader of the household. On the wives left behind by Masaba, Bello said:

They are still around; none of them has remarried and they don’t intend to leave. They are with their children and even their grandchildren. I cannot say the total number of grandchildren but I know the children are over 100.

His first son described his father as a man who gave all he had to Islam and mankind. He said:

Our father was loving, God-fearing and was never a trouble maker despite several attempts to provoke him and he imbibed this idea into us, especially on how to live in peace with one another despite differences in religion, culture and tribe and we have been doing that.

To date, Baba Masaba remains the most polygamous man in Nigeria.

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