MUTINTA MULAYE writes
A MAN of Kabangwe in Lusaka has divorced his wife of 16 years at the Boma Local Court after he got fed up with her promiscuity.
Percy Mubanga, 43, who sued Cynthia Musonda, 33, told the court that he married Musonda in 2003 and that they lived well until she went to do business in Nakonde.
He was testifying before senior presiding magistrate Sharon Sichone. “Two weeks after she came from Nakonde, I noticed that she had changed and also stopped answering phone calls in my presence,” Mubanga said.
Musonda’s phone automatically recorded calls; so one day Mubanga checked it and in one of the recordings she was talking to a man who was telling her he loved her and wanted to marry her.
“It’s like she told him she was not married. He was also telling her he wanted to buy her a house in Livingstone,” Mubanga said.
He then said he informed her mother, who rebuked Musonda and counselled her, but she was arrogant and did not even show any remorse.
Mubanga said when he confronted his wife’s lover she packed her belongings and left home the following day.
“Her sisters came to plead on her behalf and I didn’t accept it until they even involved elders from our church. We reconciled. She was even taken to balangizi for two weeks to be taught,” Mubanga said.
He said his wife even broke her SIM cards in an effort to prove to him that she had changed, but later she started with her suspicious phone calls.
“When her phone was taken to the church elders, everyone was disappointed but I forgave her without involving her relatives.We shifted to Kabangwe and I hoped she would change, but one time I received a call that she had sent nude pictures of herself to someone’s husband, which had brought problems in the man’s marriage,” Mubanga said.
He said he started hearing that his wife was usually found in bars and one day he received a call that she was in a fight with her boyfriend at a bar.
“I wanted to divorce her, but the church advised me to forgive her. Last year in December I received a call that she was with a man in a room that was connected to a bar. I went there and confirmed with my own eyes.
“I wanted to hand her over to her family, but she insisted I take her back to the bar,” Mubanga said.
He said he went back to the bar to look for her the next day and she was locked inside from 05:30 hours to around 07:00 hours.
“It was the same man from the previous day who opened the door and he actually hid her in another room, but we found her. We even came to court for adultery and the same man was charged,” Mubanga said.
Musonda did not deny having a lover in Nakonde.
She, however, said the problem with her husband was jealousy and he suspected every male she talked to of being her boyfriend.
“About the man I fought at the bar, he was just a man who owed me money. Everything else my husband just heard from other people,” Musonda said.
The court found that Musonda was the problem in the marriage because even after being forgiven many times she continued jumping from one love affair into another.
Magistrate Sichone divorce the couple with no compensation.
