Bauleni man denies fathering child

A TWENTY-SEVEN-YEAR-old man of Lusaka’s Bauleni township has denied having a child with a 19-year-old woman of the same area because he suspected her of having an affair with another man.

This is in a case in which Justina Nyangu sued Kennedy Kapindula for failing to support his two-year-old child.

Kapindula told the Chilenje Local Court that the child in question was not his and the real father should take responsibility.

Nyangu said she had an affair with Kapindula in 2010 and got pregnant in 2011 and her grandmother took her to his house after she learnt of the pregnancy.

Nyangu said she could not stay for long at Kapindula’s house because he mistreated her and she was once admitted to the University Teaching Hospital (UTH).

She explained that she left Kapindula’s house and went to live with her aunt until the child was born and that he came to see the child without any present.

“I chased him from my place because he came empty handed. According to our tradition, I expected him to bring something before seeing the child,” she said.

She told the court that Kapindula never supported the child apart from buying boom washing paste when he was asked to present something before seeing the child.

She said she wanted Kapindula to take care of the child because she wanted to get back to school.

But in his defence, Kapindula said Nyangu told her that she was pregnant when they were just two months in the relationship.

“Two months after knowing each other, she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t say anything because I never wanted to cause confusions,” he explained.

He said Nyangu was not taken to his house by her grandmother but went by herself and only stayed for two days.

Kapindula added that Nyangu never bothered to inform him when the child was born and only heard about the development from his friends two weeks after the child was born.

He said when he went to prove the birth of the child, he was chased and told not to visit Nyangu again and that she was in a relationship with another man.

In passing judgment, Magistrates George Kaoma and Sharon Sichone said it was clear that the two were once in a love relationship and that Kapindula was aware of the pregnancy.

The court said if Kapindula was not the one responsible for the pregnancy, he would have denied when he was told about it.

Kapindula was asked to go for a DNA test for him to be sure. However, he was ordered to start supporting the child by providing the mother with K200 every month.