Meet Ghana’s 80-year-old farmer with 12 wives, over 100 children
- Togbui Asilenu has lost count of his own children due to the size of his family
- He is said to have proposed to his own daughter in a street for not recognizing her
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Togbui Kofi Asilenu, an 80-year-old farmer at a small community in Eastern Region is likely to make it to make history in Ghana as the youngest man with 12 wives and over one hundred children, and still exploring to marry more women.
The local farmer has for the past 40 years given birth to over 100 children with 12 women, all of who are married to him in a polygamous marriage in one big village compound.
The children and all the wives of Togbui Asilenu on the occasion of 2017 Father’s Day marched to his residence on Sunday, ostensibly with a simple message “happy father’s day and probably to thank him for his fatherly role.
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“If I get a lady today, I will marry her and have more children. As for men, even in old age we can still father children. I’m not impotent,” Asilenu told TV3 who spent some time with the family on Father’s Day.
According to Togbui Asilenu, he has unfortunately lost count of his children due to the family size and he’s unable to mention the names of all of them when asked to do a roll call.
Speaking to Accra based-TV3, the farmer explained he proposed marriage to one of her daughters who he met in town. But for the awareness of his daughter, he would have committed a taboo by having amorous relationship with her own daughter unknowingly.
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One of his sons narrated how his father proposed to one of his sisters “He [Asilenu] met the lady and said he loved her…..and later on, the lady said she was his daughter. Adding “he [Asilenu] said his eyes were worrying him, that was why he didn’t notice it was her own daughter and we laughed over it”.
According to the son, he suspects his siblings are more than 100 as being estimated.
Despite Asilenu’s family size, his wives and children get along with each other and have been living happily as one united family. One of Asilenu’s wives said the secret to their unity is ‘respect for one another’.
Nayome Asilenu, the first wife of the farmer sharing her experience said that, she was initially not happy with her husband’s exploits with other women and complained about it but all to no avail, he still went ahead to add more women to the family.
Asilenu’s youngest child is about a year old, while the eldest is over 40 years. He currently engages some of his wives and children in his work processing cassava into dough.
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Regardless the huge size of his family, Asilenu has been a responsible father to the family all these years, at least from what his children said.
The children say Asilenu has been able to educate them to some extent, with one of his children testifying: “He helped us from infancy up to SS level before I joined the Police service, so he tried a little bit for me”.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
