'Strange spirit told me to
kill my son'
Publish Date: May 14, 2012
By Paddy Nsobya and
Elizabeth Namazzi
Annet Nawanji could not believe that her ‘dear’
husband had buried their two month-old baby alive. How could a father bury his
own child? She kept asking herself.
Her nightmare started when she returned from the garden to breastfeed her baby boy. Earlier on, she had left the child with his father as she tended the garden. She was, however, shocked when she failed to find the baby in the house. Maybe he is with his father, she thought, but the father, Geoffrey Umari, did not have the child.
In fact, he acted alarmed when she told him that she could not find the baby. Together, they started searching for the missing child, but without much luck. By then, Nawanji was frantic. Interpreting the disappearance as kidnap, they alerted the neighbours, who immediately joined them in searching for the child.
The search took them to the garden, where, upon close scrutiny, one neighbour noticed a banana plant that looked out of place. The search party decided to dig up the plant, and to their shock, ended up exhuming Nawanji’s baby. He was dead.
As the shocking discovery washed through the crowd, Umari hurriedly left to report the matter to the LC1 chairperson. This, for a father who should have been grieving for his dead child, was rather strange, a fact that did not escape the search party. Some went after him, while the rest stayed behind to exhume the body.
Evil spirits at play?
After interrogations, Umari confessed to burying his child. “A strange spirit has been telling me to eliminate my son or the family would face severe misfortune. Otherwise, I loved my son and other family members,” he told Police officers at Lugazi Police Station.
When New Vision online broke this story on Wednesday, many thought that Umari must have been mentally ill. But, according to the chief of the criminal investigations department at Lugazi Police Station, Henry Ayebare, Umari was found to be of sound mind.
“Investigations are complete and he has confessed to killing his son. His medical report shows he is normal, so he shall stand trial in court.”
However, a neighbour who preferred anonymity told New Vision online that all has not been well between Umari and Namanji for some time.
This neighbour claims that Umari has had
conflicts with his wife for some time over the child. He complained that his
wife was bearing children at a fast rate, yet they were not economically stable
to support them.
He told her to stop giving birth after the third child, but she went ahead and got pregnant with a fourth child. The neighbour adds that Umari advised Namanji to have an abortion, but she refused.
Nawanji’s pain
Nawanji’s child maybe dead, but her experience is one no mother ever wants to go through. According to neighbours, she almost ran mad when she saw her dead child. In fact, if her case is not handled professionally, she might never recover from the shock that has left her numb with pain.
According to her elder brother, Musa Maga, she has retreated into an inner shell and built a wall around herself that no ordinary words of comfort can penetrate. She has collapsed twice since the tragedy and relatives are at a loss on how to help.
“She has not recovered from the shock. She collapsed yesterday and has collapsed again this morning (Thursday), so we sent her for a medical check-up. Since Monday when she lost her son, she does not want to eat or talk. She just sits and gets lost in thoughts. We are worried of what might turn out of this silence,” Maga says.
Family rituals
According to Maga, there is only one thing to do for Nawanji. Take her back home where rituals must be performed to rid the family of the terrible misfortune brought upon it by Umari’s inhuman act. Sudanese by origin, Maga explains that their culture dictates that all the members of Nawanji’s family must be cleansed during the rituals.
“I am here on the orders of our clan elders to take back my sister for cleansing and new blessings. She must return to her parents for new blessings or something worse might happen to her.
In our culture, a father killing his own child is a horrible misfortune on the whole of his family.” What, you may ask, is Umari’s fate according to Sudanese culture?
“As for the husband,” Maga says: “Our family can no longer share with him. Elders shall sit and determine his fate whether he should still be a recognised son-in-law or not, but he shall have to serve a severe punishment if he is to be forgiven.”
Although they are Sudanese, Maga says their ancestral home is in Bugerere, Kayunga district. Sunday Vision was unable to talk to Nawanji because she was not home.
There is, however, no doubt that what she is going through is one of the worst nightmares a mother can go through.
