What A Dad!

As we celebrate Father’s Day, CATE ODERA talks to a widowed father who single-handedly raised six daughters.

- Cate Odera

In 2001, while Laban Lmbati Libokoyi was in Ethiopia on a work trip, he received a distressing call from home.

‘I was in Addis Ababa working as a supervising site engineer for the extension of Bole international airport when i got the news that my wife was critically ill,’ he says. 

He caught the first flight home. 

‘I was with her in the hospital for only two days before she passed on,’ he says. 

Laban’s wife,Wilfred Libokoyi, had been battling breast cancer for six years. surgeons performed a double mastectomy, but it was too late: the cancer had spread to her lungs. 

Laban was suddenly a widower; their six daughters, then aged 22, 19, 16, 13, 11 and 9, were motherless.

‘I kept asking god how i would manage alone. I was used to roving all over the continent – Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia – looking for a livelihood for them while she took care of our children. I sent money home for our family and future – who was i going to rely on now?’

But his determination to be a good dad, and his faith, got him through this difficult time.

‘I made it clear to my six girls that they should confide in me as their dad and as their "mum" too. I emphasised the need to embrace Biblical teachings and stressed the importance of working hard in school,’ he says.