How to set open_files_limit on mariadb
You may have to login to MariaDB and run
SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE 'open_files_limit';

and see if this is 32000 or 90162. mysqld may be capping it.
It is entirely possible that open_files_limit is getting autoadjusted. The Documentation says Default:5000, with possible adjustment and Maximum:platform dependent.
Here is how mysqld_safe and mysqld interact:

mysqld_safe will pass values to mysqld
mysqld may override values passed from mysqld_safe

According to MySQL Documentation on mysqld_safe:

Many of the options to mysqld_safe are the same as the options to mysqld. See Section 5.1.4, “Server Command Options”.
Options unknown to mysqld_safe are passed to mysqld if they are specified on the command line, but ignored if they are specified in the [mysqld_safe] group of an option file. See Section 4.2.6, “Using Option Files”.

What you may need to do is remove open_files_limit from my.cnf and let mysqld_safe assign the value it knows to mysqld.
Then, restart mysqld.
UPDATE 2018-02-28 08:24 EST
You may need to add [mysqld_safe] header in my.cnf and put open_files_limit=32000, like this:
[mysqld_safe]
open_files_limit=32000

However, don't restart mysqld. This may not properly terminate mysqld_safe because it contains an indefinite loop to check the return code of mysqld when it terminates. There is a certain return value that lets mysqld_safe know to relaunch mysqld. This means that mysqld_safe does not terminate when it handle a mysqld restart.
It is better to do the restart in two steps
service mysql stop &amp;&amp; service mysql start

Doing service mysql stop will terminate mysqld and then exit the indefinite loop in mysqld_safe, terminating mysqld_safe. Then, launching service mysql start will launch a fresh mysqld_safe process. Give it a try and let us know.
If you cannot edit my.cnf, then specify the option on the command-line:
service mysql stop &amp;&amp; service mysql start --open-files-limit=32000