Simon Odo, popularly known as “King of Satan”, has died at the age of 74, according to his son Uchenna Odo.

Mr Odo said his father died in the early hours of Tuesday morning, after a brief illness.

“He is dead,” Mr Odo told BBC Igbo in a telephone call on Wednesday. “We are preparing to bury him,” he continued.

Simon Odo is from Aji village in Nigeria’s south-eastern Enugu state, where he is a popular chief priest.

During an interview with BBC Igbo in 2020, he said he had 57 wives and had lost count of the number of children and grandchildren he had.

He said he had inherited satanism, or worshipping satan, from his parents and grandparents but he insisted that he did not help anyone looking for ways to harm their fellow human beings.

Mr Odo told the BBC that he had perfected his herbalist skills in the town of Ijebu Ode in Ogun state, where he had gone to seek a cure from a strange long-term ailment.