The authorities in central Niger state charged Mohammed Bello with “insulting religious creed” and “unlawful marriages” after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him until September 7 to comply with Islamic sharia law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives at a time.

Local newspapers reported that Mohammed Bello, who lives in Niger State in central Nigeria with his wives and at least 170 children, was ordered by local religious elders to divorce 82 of his wives by Sunday or leave the area.

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK. Lummaa presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.