WOMAN DISPUTES DNA RESULTS IN PATERNITY BATTLE WITH RETIRED SOLDIER’S FAMILY.

Ziada Kabahuma

By Our Reporter

Zaida Kabahuma, 41, is contesting DNA results that ruled out one of the two children she says she had with retired Lt. Col. Steven Kananula, 79. She accuses the soldier’s son of orchestrating the dispute.

Kananula, a resident of Kisigula, Mutundwe, became paralysed after an accident in December 2016. Kabahuma claims he fathered her two children, now aged 8 and 11, and says she has received no support from his family for eight years.

In 2018, she took the matter to court seeking child support. According to Kabahuma, Col. Kananula did not deny paternity in court. He cited his accident and instructed his son, Titus Twesige, to work with his wife to provide for the children and his own care. Kabahuma says those instructions were never carried out.

Twesige, she claims, refused to accept the children as his father’s and requested DNA testing. Kabahuma alleges he argued that one child could not be his father’s because the child has sickle cell disease, which he said does not run in their clan.

Since then, the children have undergone blood tests three times. Each test concluded that the child with sickle cell is not Kananula’s. Kabahuma disputes the findings, alleging foul play to support the son’s position.

The three tests were conducted at Lancet, MBN, and Little Oak Biotech. Dissatisfied, Kabahuma petitioned the Mengo court to order fresh testing at the Government Analytical Laboratory in Wandegeya, involving both the alleged father.

Retired Lt. Col. Steven Kananula

In November last year, Mengo court magistrate Micheal Bbosa, in case F.C.C 006/2024, ordered new DNA tests on both children to be done by a qualified government doctor.

The government results matched the three earlier tests. Kabahuma rejected those findings as well, suggesting there may have been a conspiracy to stigmatize her sickle cell daughter within the clan.

She has now appealed to Minister Balaam Barugahara and CDF Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba to intervene and have the samples tested abroad, saying she wants “true justice.”

Kabahuma insists she was a young woman at the time and feared Lt. Col. Kananula too much to commit adultery and respected his status.

Titus Twesige

She also questions why Twesige had already disputed the sickle cell child before any testing was done, and suspects he influenced the process to shame the child.

When contacted, Titus Twesige declined to comment on the allegations.