Nigerian challenges divorce order

Mr Bello Abubakar says his human rights have been violated

A Nigerian man with 86 wives, Mohammadu Bello Abubakar, is challenging in a high court an Islamic decree ordering him to divorce all but four of them.

Local traditional rulers told him to divorce his wives by the end of August or be kicked out of his home.

But federal judges ordered that the court must first decide if his human rights have been violated.

His lawyers say authorities in Niger State, governed by Sharia law, had no constitutional right to interfere.

The court in the capital, Abuja, will hear his case on 18 September.

Mr Abubakar says there is no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives.

"I have not contravened any established law that would warrant my being banished from the land," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.

"There is no law that says one must not marry more than four wives."

"All my wives are with children and some of these are people I have married and stayed with for over 30 years. How can they expect me to leave them within two days?" he reportedly told local newspapers.

The Muslim preacher and former teacher lives in Niger State with his wives and at least 170 children.

Niger is one of the Muslim majority states to have reintroduced Sharia punishments since 2000.

Several people have been sentenced to death for adultery by Sharia courts but none of these sentences have been carried out.