Mr Bello Abubakar challenged Muslim scholars two weeks ago

A Nigerian religious leader with 86 wives has accepted an Islamic decree ordering him to divorce all but four of them, local authorities say.

A spokesman for the emir of Bida told the BBC that Mohammadu Bello Abubakar, 84, agreed on Saturday to comply with the decree.

Last week one of Nigeria's top Islamic bodies, the Jamatu Nasril Islam, sentenced him to death.

The sentence was lifted but he was threatened with eviction from his home.

Earlier, Mr Abubakar had challenged Islamic scholars, saying there was 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... There is no law that says one must not marry more than four wives," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.

Many of the wives live three to a room, some have seven children

"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 former teacher and Islamic preacher 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.