Kenyan sues Zambian ex-girlfriend over property

A KENYAN investor has dragged his former Zambian girlfriend to court for allegedly forging a marriage certificate which she used to sell his family house.
Mohamed Jabi has also sued a Lusaka couple, Yakub Falir Mulla and Fazila Mulla Allo who are reported to have bought the house between 1986 and 1998 in Lusaka’s Makeni area.
He is demanding for profit with effect from January 31, 1999 to December last year in respect of the property occupied by the couple at a rate of KR10,000 per month for a period of 13 years.
The plaintiff said Mwila Mumbi took advantage of him when the MMD government deported him and sold the house.
He said all his efforts to get back to Zambia in 1998 were declined by the Immigration Department.
Mr Jabi said during his stay in Zimbabwe, he was informed that his properties were being mismanaged by his ex-girlfriend.
He said he made contacts with the Zambia Police Service that started investigating the matter on his behalf until Mumbi was arrested.
He returned in 2011 and started his own investigations and discovered that Mwila took advantage of his deportation and started making efforts of obtaining a fraudulent marriage certificate using a lawyer to sell his properties.
“That at the time I was deported the property which I bought from a Mr Changwereza had two sureties and the police had established that Mwila was not my wife, and that the marriage certificate was forged and fraudulently obtained in 1986,” he said.
But before the matter could proceed to trial before High Court Judge Mungeni Mulenga, Mumbi filed an application contending that Mr Jabi had no locus standi to sustain the proceedings and to claim ownership.
She also stated that Mr Jabi could not continue with his proceedings because there was already another court case, thereby abusing the court.
But Mr Justice Mulenga dismissed the application, saying the plaintiff had the right to own land and could proceed with the matter because he had certificate of title issued by the Ministry of Lands in his name.
“I, therefore, find that the certificate of title was issued to Mr Jabi for the subject land in 1983 as proof for validity of acquiring the said same land on which he built the same property now in contention,” he said.
Mr Justice Mulenga said the court action by the plaintiff was not an abuse of the court process because the matter in contention was never adjudicated upon and, therefore, the earlier case was dismissed for want of prosecution.-times.co.zm