Ndola Bana Chimbusa to Pay K12,000 for Turning Marriage Lessons into ‘Extra Lessons’ This is in a matter where 24-year-old Sabina Moyo dragged her 28-year-old husband, George Mwansa, and their Bana Chimbusa, Ruth Musonda,54 to the Chipulukusu Local Court in Ndola over an alleged affair. Details of the tale are that Sabina married George in […]

Ndola Bana Chimbusa to Pay K12,000 for Turning Marriage Lessons into ‘Extra Lessons’

This is in a matter where 24-year-old Sabina Moyo dragged her 28-year-old husband, George Mwansa, and their Bana Chimbusa, Ruth Musonda,54 to the Chipulukusu Local Court in Ndola over an alleged affair.

Details of the tale are that Sabina married George in December last year, with Ruth serving as their Bana Chimbusa and marriage teacher. Ruth was reportedly well known in the community as a woman who teaches newly married women how to keep a man, both physically and romantically, and was licensed by a local chief to perform her traditional marriage-teaching duties.

Sabina told the court that Ruth was popularly known as “Mama Isa Nkupange Namayo”, meaning, “Come, my child, I will make you a woman.” But according to Sabina, the woman who was supposed to prepare her for marriage allegedly became too interested in preparing her own husband.

Sabina said that after the wedding, George continued visiting Ruth at her home, something which confused her because she believed the Bana Chimbusa lessons had already come to an end.

To Sabina, George’s repeated visits looked rather like a politician who has lost an election but refuses to leave the constituency, continuing to tour the wards, greet the voters and hold meetings in the hope that, somehow, a by-election might suddenly be announced. Whenever she asked her husband why he was still visiting their marriage teacher, George allegedly told her that he was still learning and had decided to take “extra lessons” so that he could completely understand how to treat his wife.

According to Sabina, the so-called extra lessons appeared to have developed from ordinary classroom work into a full-time practical course, with George apparently refusing to graduate despite having already received his marriage certificate. She said every time she thought the lessons were finished, her husband would mysteriously return for another “revision class”, leaving her wondering whether Bana Chimbusa had introduced a new postgraduate programme in husband management.

Sabina said she initially believed her husband’s explanation, thinking that perhaps marriage came with a syllabus longer than she had expected. However, her suspicion reportedly grew after one member of the wedding organising committee whispered to her that her husband had been “fetching acidic water from Bana Chimbusa River Tigris.”

She said she did not believe the information until she allegedly discovered her husband’s vehicle parked outside a lodge. Sabina said she followed the vehicle and eventually found George and Ruth together, leaving her completely speechless and wondering how a marriage teacher had allegedly transformed the classroom into a field for practical examinations.

According to Sabina, George had taken the very car she had given him, only for her to discover it parked outside the lodge where he was allegedly attending what she described as “advanced marriage lessons.” She told the court that at that moment, she felt as though the entire marriage syllabus had been rewritten behind her back and that the teacher had decided to demonstrate the lessons personally.

When George was asked to explain himself, he reportedly admitted sleeping with Ruth and apologised to his wife. George told the court that he did not know what had made him fall in love with the older woman and jokingly suggested that perhaps Ruth had used juju on him.

George further told the court that since marrying Sabina, he had struggled to develop the same romantic feelings towards his wife, saying that even entering her “ozone layer” had become a difficult assignment, while his relationship with Ruth had somehow managed to receive a passing mark.

He allegedly told the court that after completing his Bana Chimbusa “practical lessons”, he would return home and find his wife expecting him to perform his marital duties, only for him to realise that the harmful substances allegedly acquired during the extra lessons had already polluted the atmosphere around his wife’s ozone layer, leaving his home environment in need of serious environmental rehabilitation.

Sabina, however, told the court that she had been suffering from serious marital neglect since the wedding. She said she had been denied proper conjugal attention and described herself as a woman whose “gearbox of forbidden fruit” had been left parked for far too long.

“I feel like I am not a woman in this marriage. I am also a human being. I need to be loved, appreciated and attended to. My gearbox of forbidden fruit has indeed suffered,” Sabina lamented.

She told the court that what made the matter even more painful was the support she had given George. Sabina said she loved her husband so much that she even convinced her parents to help him find employment because she wanted to see him succeed and build a better future with him.

According to Sabina, she never imagined that after helping her husband find his feet, she would eventually find those very feet walking towards the home of their Bana Chimbusa for lessons that had apparently gone far beyond the marriage curriculum.

People in the courtroom reportedly burst into laughter as the story unfolded, with some shaking their heads at the revelation that a Bana Chimbusa had allegedly become both teacher and student in the same marriage.

When Ruth was given an opportunity to respond to the allegations, the 54-year-old Bana Chimbusa reportedly chose tears instead of words. She stood before the court and cried, leaving those in attendance wondering whether she had forgotten the lesson she was supposed to teach or whether the court had simply caught her without an answer to the examination question.

The court advised Ruth that a Bana Chimbusa occupies a position of trust in the community and is expected to guide young couples and protect marriages rather than allegedly become romantically involved with a client’s husband. The court reminded her that marriage lessons should remain lessons and should not become an opportunity to test the teacher’s own practical skills.

The court subsequently ordered Ruth to pay K12,000 compensation to Sabina.

The case left people in the courtroom joking that George had apparently enrolled for extra marriage lessons, only to discover that the teacher herself had become the final examination.

Who was wrong remember the court did not order divorce.