They now range in age from 10 to 50. The older ones have had multiple children of their own. The whole tribe, including 578 grandchildren, lives in a state of some chaos in a family compound in the village of Bugisa, in a remote area of eastern Uganda.
The compound consists of a dilapidated house with a rusty corrugated iron roof and about 20 thatched mud huts.
The family has grown to be so vast that Hasahya said he can no longer afford to look after them all.
The 68-year-old has ordered his 12 wives to take contraceptive measures.
“At first it was a joke ... but now this has its problems,” he told the AFP news agency.
“With my health failing and merely two acres of land for such a huge family, two of my wives left because I could not afford the basics like food, education, clothing.
“My wives are on contraceptives but I am not. I don’t expect to have more children because I have learnt from my irresponsible act of producing so many children that I can’t look after [them].”
Hasahya, who made money from rearing cattle, revels in a certain celebrity status in the region.
His urge to reproduce came as a young man when his only sibling, a brother, advised him to marry “many wives” and ensure that the family expanded. He appears to have taken on the challenge with the utmost dedication.
“How can a man be satisfied with one woman? That is a sign of being born a man but with female hormones,” he told The Daily Monitor, a Ugandan newspaper, in a recent interview.
“All my wives … live together in the same house. It’s easy for me to monitor them and also stop them from eloping with other men in the village.”
Attracted by his then status as a cattle trader and butcher, Hasahya said villagers would offer their daughters’ hand in marriage. Some of the women were below the age of 18.
Child marriage was only banned in Uganda in 1995, while polygamy is allowed in the East African country according to certain religious traditions.
“Some of the children, I can’t recall their names,” said Hasahya, a Muslim, as he rummaged through piles of old notebooks looking for details about their births. “It’s the mothers who help me to identify them.”
But on some days, he cannot even recall the names of some of his wives and has to ask one of his sons, Shaban Magino, a 30-year-old primary school teacher who helps run the family’s affairs.
Daily life for the sprawling family revolves around tending fields of cassava and rice, collecting firewood, fetching water, weaving mats and playing cards.
The midday meal often consists of cassava, a starchy African staple. But even that is in short supply for such a large number of children.
“The food is barely enough. We are forced to feed the children once or on a good day twice,” said Zabina, his third wife.
Two of his wives have left him and another three live in a town near the village.
Bumaru Hifunde, one of his sons, said the trouble began when his father ran into financial difficulties.
“He had money but four years ago, his cattle business collapsed and women started leaving one by one,” he told The Daily Monitor.
