Aliyu berates rights groups for supporting man with 86 wives

The Governor of Niger State, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, on Tuesday carpeted human rights activists and some Civil Society Organizations in the country for their defence of the Bida, Niger State-based Islamic scholar, Mohammed Masaba, reported to have married more than 86 wives.
Aliyu, while swearing in the first female Chief Judge in Niger State, Justice Fati Lami Abubakar, wife to former military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, said that the defense of Masaba by the CSOs and human rights activists was morally wrong and unjustifiable since the cleric was believed to have been engaged in what the society perceive as an illegal behavior.
It should be recalled that the state government had engaged Masaba in a legal tussle for marrying more than 86 wives and describing the act as un-Islamic, which prompted over 20 human rights activists in the country to rise in defence of Masaba.
The governor argued that the groups were supposed to have risen in defence of the women whom Masaba must have through illegal means lured into marriage instead of pitching their support with the cleric who has also vowed not to stop marrying more wives until he dies.
He said: “We can deceive ourselves but we cannot deceive God.”
Describing the new Chief Judge of the state and former first lady as “a paragon of empathy and welfare”, Aliyu told Justice Abubakar to bring these qualities to bear in her new calling so that the judiciary of the state will be transformed.
Justice Abubakar, Aliyu said, is not only a “pride to her family, not only a pride to Minna, not only a pride to Niger State, not only a pride to Nigeria but mankind.”