VICTORIA KASANGA writes
@SunZambia
A woman in Ndola shocked the court when she refused to stay with her step children in the family house after the death of their father.
When the family came before the court to choose an administrator, the widow Mary Kangawa told the court she did not want to live with the step children in the house her late husband built.
Jackson Mateyo, the first born child, said the deceased John Mateyo had three children from his first wife and after she died, he married a second wife and had two children and she also died.
Mr Mateyo narrated that after the death of his two wives, his father married a third wife and decided to sell the family house in Twapia Township.
He then bought a plot in Nkwazi Township where he built a house.
This came before Chifubu Local Court presiding magistrate Besa Kalwa Mushibwe sitting with Kaala Namangolwa Nyambe and Paul Kayula.
He said from his third wife his father only had one child and everyone lived together.
“After he retired, he built another house on the same plot and decided to put tenants in one of them and the entire family lived together in harmony in the new house,” he said.
He said the step mother used to mistreat the step children to the extent of denying them food and that only the children from his first wife used to help their siblings since they were grown ups and lived on their own.
Mr Mateyo said the other children had nowhere to go as the father sold the house they lived in with their mother before she died.
The proceeds from the sale of the Twapia house were used to build the one they were currently occupying in Nkwazi Township.
The family chose Bestone Mateyo, the second born from the first wife, as the administrator over Mr John Mateyo’s estate.
The court ordered that the widow and all the children to the deceased live together in the house as they all had a share in the estate.
The court further added that the money from rentals to be shared adding that 65 per cent was to be shared among the six children and 35 per cent to the widow.
