Lusaka ZAF Officer in Court For Adultery

By NOMSA NKANA
A MILLITARY officer in Lusaka who joked about being in an affair with a married woman almost landed in trouble when the man he was speaking to dragged him to court for adultery, claiming the woman in question fitted his wife’s description.
The plaintiff, Gift Kaile, told the court that when he went to sell fish at a ZAF base he met a military officer at the gate called Ben Mubanga, who began interrogating him about where he was coming from and in the process told him he had a lover called Josephine living in the same area.
But officer Mubanga who was shaken and couldn’t hold back tears in court, said he told Kaile that story because he was only trying to investigate if he really came from the area he said he was coming from.
Mubanga told the court Kaile looked like a suspicious character because when he asked him for his National Registration Card (NRC), he failed to produce it.
This was heard before Justices, Lazarus Mwape and George Kaoma is in a case in which, Gift Kaile, 35, of Lusaka West sued Ben Mubanga, 31, also of Lusaka west for compensation for adultery.
The court, however, threw out the charge, saying there was no evidence that adultery was committed.
Kaile told the court that one day when he was with his wife Josephine 29, her phone rang and he heard a man say, ‘I have reached where we planned to meet’.
He said a week later, the man kept calling but his wife became uncomfortable to pick up the call and when she did, she told him it was the same man that has been calling her.
“I grabbed the phone after she hang-up because I wanted to call back the man but she deleted the number. I asked her why she did that if she didn’t know the man,” he said.
Being a fish monger, Kaile went to the ZAF camp to sell fish where he found a Mr Mubanga at the gate who asked for his N RC.
Kaile said Mubanga asked him where he lived and when he told him, he said he had a girlfriend by the name of Josephine in the same area and he proceeded to describe her.
Upon seeing the description fitted his wife, Kaile said he could have collapsed but had to hold himself to see where this was leading.
He then said Mubanga told him his lover Josephine is a married woman who he has been having sex with in various rooms at the clinic where he works.
Kaile belaboured to tell the court that Mubanga also told him he started having sex with Josephine in March when she had been pregnant but made her abort after which they planned to get married.
He said Mubanga told him Josephine enjoyed the sexual romps they were having and that Kaile does not satisfy her like he does.
“I asked him how he could plan on marrying such a woman who would probably cheat on him as well but he said he wasn’t serious about marrying her. He was only playing around with her because his wife was not around,” he said.
Kaile said he was so disturbed that he went home and took his wife to Mubanga’s place to discuss the matter.
At Mubanga’s home, Kaile demanded that he explains to him what he had earlier told him but he refused saying he couldn’t remember everything.
Kaile said he started narrating everything he was told while Mubanga’s wife cried in disbelief asking Josephine if all that was true but she denied it.
After some days, Mubanga went to Kaile’s home and begged him not to take the matter to court because he is a Pastor who casts out demons.
Kaile said Mubanga also told him since he holds a high position at work, he might get fired if the saga reached his office.
He said Mubanga, asked to settle the matter out of court and that he would pay him.
Kaile said for 3 months now, Josephine has been denying him sex and that she told him she didn’t want any more children with him but would have them with another man.
And in his statement, Mubanga who struggled to talk said he met Kaile at his working place the day he went there to sell fish but because he looked suspicious, he had to engage him in a conversation to try and establish if he really was a credible man.
Mubanga who had tears in his eyes as he spoke denied all the allegations saying he is a man of God who is incapable of immorality.
He said when Kaile approached him at the gate, he had no NRC and in trying to investigate him further, he brought up the issue of him having a lover in Kaile’s area.
But upon hearing that, Kaile quickly asked if his girlfriend wouldn’t be a woman called Josephine and Mubanga without much thought agreed that was her name.
To his surprise when he got home from work, Kaile and Josephine paid them a visit where Kaile angrily told his (Mubanga) wife of the alleged affair.
At this point, Mubanga who is also military officer failed to talk further as the well of tears began running down his face.
After composing himself with a stern warning from the magistrate, Mubanga said all he told Kaile earlier was only to establish if he was a credible man as it was not allowed to bring in any Jim and Jack in a military base.