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| Rape Me? • You’ll Have To Kill Me First |
5/24/2007 |
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Barely one week after publicly singing thanks to her God and her fans after picking up The Best Female Vocal Performance award at the prestigious Ghana Music Awards Festival, Christiana Love is thanking God again, this time, for her life.
Last Friday, the gospel diva was attacked by armed robbers at her Sowutuom home in Accra and almost suceeded in doing the unthinkable - robbing and raping her.
According to Christiana, at about 2:30 am when she was watching a movie with two of her bandsmen in her living room, they heard a gunshot on their compound. She said she hurriedly put off the television set and asked everyone to hide in their rooms.
She said soon, there was a hard knock on the door and in no time the robbers had entered. “I don''t know how they got in, you know armed robbers have their own way of getting into people''s houses".
On entering the four robbers first went to the room where the two bandsmen were hiding and moved them at gunpoint to the room where the househelp and her two children were sleeping and locked them up.
She said from there, two of the robbers went into another room where one female pastor was sleeping and demanded her mobile phone. Christiana said she was having the pastor’s phone at that time and therefore the pastor led the robbers to her (Christiana’s) room.
The first question one of the robbers asked Christiana was: “What is the tittle of your album?”. She answered: “Awurade Akae Me.” Upon which the other robber said: Let that God of yours save you because we will kill you if you don’t give us 20 million now.”
“Infact I was really scared so I readily gave them all the money I had with me which was about seven million cedis. They then took my wedding ring, some jewellery, DVD Player, seven mobile phones, recorders, clothes, shoes and other personal belongings” she said.
She said that after this, they asked her to remove her clothes so that they could sleep with her. “I did not struggle with them. I wept and went on my knees and pleaded with them not to do that but they did not want to listen to me. I therefore asked them to kill me instead of raping me”.
She said they gave her a number of slaps when she tried to resist but they let her go. "I know it was the power of God that spoke to them not to rape me.” she added.
Christiana Love said after the beatings, she felt very weak but the robbers took her to the living room and asked her where her husband, Pastor Love Hammond was. She said she told them he was having an all-night programme at the race course, near Santa Maria in Accra.
She said the robbers decided to wait till her husband returned but afer waiting for a while, they finally left.
“I phoned my husband and he came home immediately. He found one of the pistols which the robbers had brought and went with me to Odorkor Police Station to report the case.
My husband gave the pistol to the policeman as evidence of the attack and then took me to Ridge Hospital”, she said.
Christian Love said the incident was an experience she would not like to remember, but all the same it has increased her faith in Christ, because she saw on that day that God does not reject his children in times of difficulty.
Pastor Love Hammond, the husband of Christiana Love, told Showbiz that he believed the attack was planned by some people in their area but he thanked God for saving his family from the attack.
Speaking with the Police Commander of Odorkor, DSP Ernest Maayeb, he said it was true that Christiana Love and her husband reported their attack on Friday morning to them and also deposited the found pistol.The DSP said Christiana could not write her statement then because of the poor condition she was in at the time.
He said he told Christiana’s husband to take her to the hospital and come back to write her statement after she had received treatment but as at last Monday, Christiana had not gone back.
“Infact Christiana Love is making the work very difficult for us. We have to get her statement to make our investigation easier”, the Police Chief said.
Story by Sophia Mensah
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