BELLO MAASABA HAS 89 rooms in his house – just enough for each wife to have one. Over his 87 years, the faith healer has married 107 women. However, he has divorced 12 for disobedience and nine have died, leaving him with a tally of just 86 living wives, the youngest of whom is 19.
Maasaba – who explained to the LA Times he was instructed to take multiple wives by a vision of the archangel Gabriel – has also fathered 185 children, though only 133 are still living. He now has an extended family of around 5,000, many of whom live in or around his house.
However, he has encountered some resistance from civil and religious authorities in Nigeria. Maasaba was arrested in 2008 and ordered to divorce all but four spouses by local Islamic authorities. He spent 22 days behind bars before being bailed – and was freed when all his wives, as well as their parents, testified they had agreed to marry him.
Everyone, he told LA Times reporter Robyn Dixon, asks him the same question: How does he meet their romantic needs?
“In his wisdom, God has given me the power and strength to give them the sexual portion they need,” he says. “If I didn’t satisfy them, they would leave.”
