AMAN o f Z a m b i a Township last week had a shock of his life when a woman who had agreed to give him paternity of her son turned against him before the Ganerton local court. Jacob Samunima took Mary Nacheta to court seeking an order to have her release the child to him. Samunima told the court that he met Nacheta at his friend’s bar where she used to work as a bar attendant. He testified that he expressed interest in her and told her that he was willing to accept her with her pregnancy as long as she gives paternity of the child to him.

Samunima said he met Nacheta’s parents where she introduced him as the man responsible for the pregnancy she was carrying. He said he moved her into his parents’ house and that they used to stay together until she gave birth. S a m u n i m a s a i d a f t e r differing, Nacheta moved out of the house and that she also went away with her son. “I have spent so much money on the child and I will not allow her to go back on the agreement we had, this child is mine and I will fight for him,” he testified.

But Nacheta told the court that she was left with no choice but to accept Samunima’s proposal because he threatened to have her fired if she turned him down. S h e s a i d S a m u n i m a promised that he would marry her and that they would start a family together but that his family started mistreating her.

Nacheta said she also discovered that Samunima was impotent and that he started cheating on her with other women. She said this prompted her to move out of the house and that she cannot give her son to him because he is not the father and that she only agreed to marry him because she thought he would take care of her. A n d G a n e r t o n s e n i o r presiding magistrate Nsama Banda upheld the claim and ordered the two to go for a DNA test to ascertain if Samunima is the father of the child