An Ethiopian couple has dragged Japanese businessman Abe Kalpana and her associates to court, seeking to stop an attempt to kick them out of a business they founded in Kampala.

Ms. Ayalew Tigsit Melkamu and her husband, Woldemichael Sisay Bekure, have asked the Commercial Division of the High Court in Kampala to stop Ms. Kalpana, Ms. Debra Marie Hayama, and Mr. Fidel Otafiire Mugarura from claiming ownership of Ephrata Investment Group Ltd.

Mugarura is the son of Internal Affairs Minister Kahinda Otafiire, while Kalpana is married to the cousin of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Investment group Ephrata was registered in Kampala in 2013 and, among others, ran Hideout Bar and Lounge, which operated as both a bar and restaurant along the Lugogo Bypass.

“Our vision was to operate the most sought-out and successful bar and lounge in Kampala,” Ms. Melkamu says in the May 28 affidavit.

The investment group, the couple said, was inspired by and named after their daughter, Ephrata.

But Ms. Kalpana, a former vice president of a major paint company in the country who is facing a separate legal suit for failure to pay rent in Munyoyo, apparently had no time for such family sentiments as naming a business after a doting child.

Interestingly, the affidavit suggests that Ms. Kalpana’s rent-defaulting habit has preceded her reputation again, this time at the new business.