Sex Machine: Nigerian With 86 Wives Marries Again

Bello Masaba, the 87-year old Nigerian Islamic faith healer, who was detained for several weeks in 2008, for having too many wives, is unrelenting in practising his peerless polygamy, according to online reports today.

In an interview with a foreign newspaper, Masaba disclosed how he continues to write his name into the Guinness Book of Records, as Nigeria’s most prolific man, by marrying even more wives.

“He is still marrying everytime Miss Right comes along. He now has 86 wives, the youngest 19 and the oldest 64. Nine have died and 12 he divorced for disobedience,” the reporter for Los Angeles Times said.

The report further said that Masaba has had 185 children, with 133 still surviving, the youngest child being just a month old. Altogether, he had married 107 women.

How does Masaba satisfy his women sexually? The octogenarian ascribed his sexual power to the Unseen God, saying: “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.”

So far, Masaba’s record is unmatched by men in Nigeria. But his prowess in attracting women pales into a distant second to the polygamous record of King Lukengu of the Bakuba tribe in Congo. He has 800 wives and has even lost count of the children, according to Ten Ten(Most)Most.blogspot.com.

Struggling however to meet Masaba’s pace are Ziona Chana, an Indian from the state of Mizoram, who has fathered 91 children from 39 wives; Saleh al Sayeri from Saudi Arabia who has married 58 wives and has 35 children and Warren Jeff, head of America’s fundamentalist Mormons, who has 80 wives and 250 children. Jeff is facing the wrath of American law over bigamy and other offences.

In September 2008, Masaba also faced the anger of puritanical Islam when he was arrested from his home and ordered to divorce 82 of his wives, leaving him with just four, as prescribed by Islam. He refused. The case dragged into an Abuja High Court, where he was released after the testimony of 57 of the wives that they married him willingly.

Read the excerpts of Masaba’s story as published by Los Angeles Times, online:

“He fell in love with his first wife because she was sincere and eager to please. His second wife, a cousin, was irresistible because she did everything he wished and nothing he didn’t.

“That alone made me love her.”

His third wife won him because she submitted to his every request.

“I saw her, I liked her. I went to her parents and asked for her hand in marriage.”

Wife No. 4 was very obedient. So was wife No. 5. Wife No. 6, the same. As were wives 7 and 8 and 9 and …

Well, by then — it was the late 1980s — things had taken off for Bello Masaba, an Islamic faith healer in this city(Bida) in Niger state. He went from a wedding every few months to one every few weeks. ..

He begins with his family history, almost singing the story of his roots.

After school, he led an ordinary life for 21 years, involved in the clothing business and later working for a sugar company, keeping just two wives. Life was normal until a religious “vision” in the 1970s, which he says involved a visit from the archangel Gabriel. He fell deeply ill, unable to eat or sleep for days, and all the medicine the doctors gave him only made him worse.

He gave up work and became a traditional faith healer who eschewed medicine. The angel also instructed him to take wife after wife after wife.

“I get a revelation from God telling me any woman I’m going to marry. If it wasn’t from God, I wouldn’t have gone beyond two,” he explains in a wispy, singsong voice.

Masaba has to pause to remember the number of children he has: an ever growing figure, with the youngest just 1 month old. He has fathered 185, and 133 are still living. He has acquired an extended family of some 5,000 people, many of whom live in the sprawling compound in the block surrounding his house.

It takes three enormous sacks of rice a day and prodigious quantities of meat and vegetables to feed his enormous clan. He’s rich because of the handsome fees paid by those who come to be healed.

Masaba’s many marriages underscore the gulf between modern urban Nigeria and traditional rural towns, where women often have few choices…

Masaba is unyielding in his refusal to seek medical care, even if his wives or children are dying.

When any died, “I didn’t feel annoyed or upset,” he says. “I didn’t feel anything because it’s God who gave them to me and it’s God who takes them away.”

But when a child becomes ill, that can try a mother’s obedience.

“I told them not to go to hospital,” Masaba says. “They must report to me and pray. Some of my wives don’t have that confidence. They would take them to hospital behind my back. If anyone goes behind my back, the child will develop a swelling in the body and will eventually die.”

Some of the wives, wearing bright costumes of pink and blue, gold and yellow, meet visitors to the house in a white-tiled entry room, chorusing hellos. Others, surrounded by a clutch of children, cascade down a wooden staircase and peer curiously around a door.

As Masaba talks, they are hidden within, listening to the squawking speakers, as the delicate question is finally posed. With so many wives, how does he meet their romantic needs?

He smiles. Everyone asks him that.

“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.”

Then he stands up, and his aides rush to him, putting his white shoes on his feet and arranging his white costume.