Bakary Yerima Bouba Alioum is the king of Maroua in the extreme north of Cameroon.
Abumbi II, the 11th king of Maroua in Cameroon, has about 100 wives. As the article reported by the Standard makes clear, they weren't all his to begin with. According to tradition there, when a king dies, his successor also inherits his wives and then marries his queen.
"Queens have a huge role in the kingdom," says Prince Nickson, emphasizing that it is up to these women to shape the king into his royal role.
"Behind every successful man there must be a very, very successful woman," says Abumbi's third wife, Queen Constance, reports Gazeta Express. "Our tradition requires that when you are a king, the old women must pass on the tradition to the younger women, and also teach the tradition to the king, because the king was a prince, not a king."
Despite the fact that polygamy is legal in Cameroon, data shows that there are far fewer polygamous marriages on the African continent, writes CNN. "During colonization, new values came, different from the traditional values we had and this is a constant conflict between traditional values and modern western ones", admits King Abdumbi II, who has been leading Bafut for 47 years. “My role is to bring them together, to find a way forward so that people can enjoy modernization without destroying their culture. Without culture, you are not a human being, you are an animal," he says.
Writing about this, Soni Methu, CNN anchor for 'Inside Africa', said that this people is not stuck in the past but is keeping peace with the present. King Zofoa doesn't think he's stuck in the past.
Despite having about 100 wives and more than 500 children after his father's death, he considers himself a very modern king.
"To lead a kingdom in this day and age, you have to be educated because things are moving so fast. As they used to say, education is light, ignorance is darkness", says the King.