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80-year-old man demands divorce, share of millet, pans
Mr Paul Osinge, 80 and Ms Norah Iningoi, 79. PHOTOS BY SIIMON PETER EMWAMU
What you need to know:
- Paul Osinge, 80, says his wife, Ms Norah Iningoi, who he has been with for 18 years, has left him for a 60-year-old man.
- However, Ms Iningoi says they were never married.
A jilted old man, 80, and wife, 79, are locked in an unusual divorce case and property wrangle that has bounced back and forth between village and sub-county authorities without resolution.
Mr Paul Osinge filed the case before the Akaramai village committee, seeking separation from his 79-year-old wife, who he claims has ejected him and has moved on with another fairly young man of 60 years.
The estranged couple accept they have lived peacefully for the last 18 years in Akaramai Village, Labori Sub-county, Serere District, but disagree whether it was as husband and wife.
The frail looking Osinge said his decision to seek separation from Norah Iningoi, 79, is a painful one.
“I felt a sense of both rejection and dejection as my wife has for the last two months moved on with another fairly young man,” he lamented.
But Ms Iningoi, a mother of six, with multiple grandchildren, dismisses Mr Osinge’s claims that they have been living as wife and husband.
Speaking from her home at Akaramai Village, Labori Sub-county, Ms Iningoi said: “I hosted him here since 2000 as a gesture of humility and hospitality, not as my husband. His claims of being my husband are lies. At my advanced age! Do I look like a young woman with feelings?”
But Mr Osinge, a father of five children and nine grandchildren, said he understands they have not married officially but seeks fairness in the split.
He said Ms Iningoi has stayed with him and wasted his productive years at her home.
“My going to the area village committee is to help us divide the five bags of dried potato chips, chicken we have raised together, a bag of sorghum, a bag of millet, saucepans, and one goat we equally worked for, and I will leave her home,” Mr Osinge said.
Official stuck with case
But the divorce case is stuck before the Labori Sub-county community development officer, Mr Mathias Elau, who said the case is unusual.
“I received the cries of that 80-year-old man, but I couldn’t handle the case. I referred him to his area village committee to handle,” he added.
Mr Osinge told Daily Monitor that until February, they had lived amicably as husband and wife, but his wife’s attitude suddenly changed.
“I got to learn later that in my absence there was a fairly young man in his 60s, who has been filling my space,” he said.
To his surprise, he said, he discovered it was the wife of one of his sons, who was a matchmaker for her mother-in-law.
Mr Osinge said his companion has thrown him out of their house and tossed his beddings to the kitchen to officially create room for her new love.
But Ms Iningoi said she made up her mind to kick out Mr Osinge because he was much of a liability, only eating food she toils for.
“I told him that now that you have aged, kindly look for the whereabouts of your clansmen, in case of any sickness, I may not be of help because I am also now frail,” she added.
She said this did not go well with Mr Osinge. “It’s here that he started to frame me as being in love with another man.”
Ms Iningoi said out of goodwill, she offered Mr Osinge a bag of dried potato chips, but he reportedly sold off the entire bag, and has now placed additional claims for her property before the village committee.
But Mr Samuel Okello, one of the grandsons of Mr Osinge, received the news of his grandfather’s ejection with joy.
“It is a wakeup call for him to go and resettle with his clansmen in Kyere Sub-county, Serere District, where he deserted 56 years ago.
Mr Peter Aisu, the area village chairman, together with his committee members, said their attempts to mediate a peaceful separation between the two have not yielded any fruit after Ms Iningoi refused to share any property.
“As the village committee, we looked into the contested property, and thought they would divide, but the old woman has not bought the idea,” he said, adding that they will refer the matter to the sub-county.
