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South Sudanese man, Lango family fight over ‘sold’ baby
A police officer hands over the child to a Reverand Sister at Ngetta Babies Home on August 20. PHOTO/BILL OKETCH
What you need to know:
- Local leaders in Lango Sub Region are concerned that many families in the area are either selling away their children or sacrificing them because of poverty.
A South Sudanese man is in the centre of a paternity battle with a family in Lira City in the hopes of gaining parental rights to a 7-month-old girl, Daily Monitor has learnt.
In this rare circumstance, the child’s mother Ms Paska Akello, 23, claims she ‘‘was never in any relationship with the South Sudanese man’’ identified as Mr Jimmy Ngong Magok. But the young mother was in a secret relationship with another man of Lango origin during the first Covid-19 lockdown.
The product of that relationship is the 7-month-old baby girl whose paternity is now under contention.
The family at Ayago Cell in Lira City East Division acknowledged their daughter was in a relationship with a Lango man called Mr Andrew Odia. That was in 2020.
‘‘The girl then got pregnant in the process but the man denied taking full responsibility,’’ her father, Mr John Bosco Opio said.
Luckily, the 23-year-old secretariat student January 13, 2021 delivered safely at the nearby Ayago Health Centre III, a government health facility.
According to the Ministry of Health’s child health card, the baby weighed 2.8 kgs at birth.
On receiving the good news, Mr Odia made a U-turn, went to the girl’s parents with his two friends; Mr David Yiga and Mr Bob Musobya.
On arrival, they asked for forgiveness and Mr Odia paid luk (traditional kind of compensation for entering into a relationship outside marriage). Mr Odia and two friends paid one cow, two goats, two spears and four chickens and later pledged to ‘‘take good care of the child and the mother.’’
In a statement recorded at Lira Central Police Station under file reference number SD 34/09/08/2021, the story got a new twist and some secrets emerged.
Mr Opio said they forgave their would-be in-law and handed over his family (wife and the baby) to him.
The three men, the woman and the baby headed to Kampala and on reaching Kampala.
Three days later, Mr Odia asked Akello to bring their baby to a clinic – his purported workplace.
“I brought the child to him and he told me to leave the child at the clinic so that I could go to the salon and work on my hair. When I returned, my child was nowhere to be seen and when I inquired about my child’s whereabouts, the man said he had already handed her over to the orphanage. That is how my baby vanished,” Ms Akello recalled.
The child disappeared while under the custody of Akello’s lover on January 21.
But the man said the orphanage would keep the baby while the mother resumed her secretariat course that ended abruptly after she got pregnant.
It turned out that ‘‘the baby was not at the orphanage but sold to some Dinka lady only identified as Rhoda at Shs7.5 million,’’ the child’s grandfather said.
The Dinka lady is a girlfriend to a South Sudanese man, who is now claiming to have fathered the baby.
Mr Opio said when his daughter returned home in Lira City, she wanted to commit suicide, prompting him to report the matter to police.
At this time, the suspect (the girl’s lover) was arrested from Lamwo District, at the Uganda-South Sudan border. He was brought to Lira before being taken to Kampala where he said the child was being kept at a childcare centre.
“We found the child under the care of some strange woman and we brought them to Lira. The woman claimed she had already bought the child at Shs 7.5 million. But after pressure was mounted on her, she turned around and said she was just keeping the child for two years and would later take the baby back to her biological parents,” Mr Opio said.
The Dinka lady then handed over the child to the grandparents in the presence of police at Lira Central Police Station, Daily Monitor has established.
But the case was far from being concluded. At this point, the South Sudanese man surfaced in the picture and said Rhoda was actually his lover.
He said Rhoda delivered the child through caesarean section (C-Section), maintaining that he is the one who fathered the child.
“Rhoda was operated January 21 from a clinic in Kampala where Bob (Musobya) works and that was the same day and same place where the child of the lady from Lira also disappeared from,” Mr Ngong Magok said
DNA to be done
As the parties continued battling over the child’s paternity, police were left with no option but to remove the child and hand over to Ngetta Babies Home in Lira City for safe custody. Ngetta Babies Home is under the Lira Catholic diocese.
The two conflicting parties will be subjected to a DNA paternity test.
“The South Sudanese man says the NDA test should be carried out in Kampala but where will I get the money for that NDA test and transport? What I know is that the child is my grandchild but my concern now is how will I recover her?” Mr Opio told Daily Monitor via telephone on Monday.
On Tuesday, a close relative to the girl told Daily Monitor that his sister was already boarding a bus to travel to Kampala for the DNA test.
“Those to be subjected to the NDA test include; Akello, her lover who is a Lango by tribe, the woman who was found with the baby in Kampala and the South Sudanese man,” he said via telephone.
Lira acting District Police Commander (DPC), Mr Geoffrey Emojong declined to comment on the matter since he was attending a suspect’s parade meeting.
Eng Dr Moses Michael Odongo Okune, a rival Lango Paramount Chief, told his cabinet meeting in Lira on Monday that many families in Lango are either selling away their children or sacrificing them because of poverty.
