A very distraught young couple had to cancel their wedding in Kenya when a man barged in claiming to be their father. The story that backs his claim is certainly an entangled one that made the groom storm out of the ceremony angry while the bride was whisked away in a car by relatives.
What was to be the beginning of their forever turned out to be something else. Anne Magwi and Jotham Munini were stopped just before they walked down the aisle in a church in Tana River county last Saturday.
The man, who claimed to their biological father, walked into the ceremony at the Holy Redemption Ministries flanked by his sisters to put an end to what he deems an abomination as siblings should not be allowed to exchange vows.
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Festus Muli, the pastor of the church, said the supposed father revealed that the couple were born out of his previous relationships with two different women.
According to Daily Nation, the alleged father, James Sidai, was once married and his wife at the time discovered his affair with his lover. Sidai claims their relationship hit the winds and the wife left with their one-year-old son (the groom), whom he has never met to date.
He tried to make things work with his lover after his wife left but the relationship did not last due to financial constraints, constant bickering, and misunderstandings.
The lover also walked out of the relationship when she was four months pregnant. The lover is believed to have married a teacher that same year and gave birth to a girl (the bride).
“He said one of the children, the groom, was sired in an informal relationship that did not end well,” said pastor Muli. “The bride was conceived from the woman with whom he had a clandestine relationship at the time,” he added.
Currently, Sidai has three children with his new wife but has been keeping tabs on his ‘children’ through friends and relatives although he never approached them till now. His nephew claims his efforts to trace his children over the last 10 years have proven futile.
Sidai got wind of the nuptials through a WhatsApp group and decided to make an appearance and ‘save’ his children from committing incest.
“This man married and has three children with the current wife but has never been in contact with the children he sired out of wedlock,” said the man of God.
“He learned of the wedding through a friend who also shared it on a certain WhatsApp group. That is when he decided to make this trip and trace the church,” said the pastor.
Immediately this transpired, the wedding was called off and the pastor gathered the concerned parties for a meeting. The groom grew up with the story that his father had died in a car accident when he was a child and the bride was raised by the teacher and made to believe he was her biological father till his passing.
“The women did not deny knowing the man, and neither did they deny paternity. We sat down the couple in the nick of time and explained things out,” the pastor noted.
Now the wedding guests had their suspicions but to save the family more embarrassment, the pastor told them the couple had engaged in pre-marital sex.
The pastor later gave a word of caution to all parents to avoid such occurrences and be truthful with their children about the whereabouts of parents.
“If you happen to sire a child out of wedlock, tell them the truth about their father. Do not tell them he died in a road accident even if he is miserable in the streets, it’s ungodly,” he said.
