Battered and dragged

At a time that the senseless killing of women in the capital is thought to have abated, the gruesome encounter of a 22 year old lady with an unidentified taxi driver last Thursday should set the Police and the citizenry on edge.

It was a close shave with death and the setting was ironically, the Awudome Cemetery where perhaps, if Akosua Pomma’s assailant had succeeded would have left her to live with the dead.

But after she had gained consciousness at the Ridge Hospital in Accra, Akosua Pomma, a telephonist attributed her survival to divine intervention.

“It is through the power of God that I have survived today to tell you my ordeal”, Pommaa told The Independent in an interview.

Regrettably, she does not know the number of the vehicle though she recollects the vehicle as an old Fiat model.

It was Thursday, January 17, and as a routine, Akosua Pomma, 22, had hired a taxi cab from her work place- Glad Antwi Communication Centre at Kokomlemle to her Dansoman residence.

The time, as she told this paper was around 9: 30 p.m. and with traffic intensifying with every second at Kokomlemle, she could not bother much about the taxi cab that she picked nor did she scrutinise the driver of the taxi cab.

For then, her only obsession was how to get home early enough, get enough rest and come to work the next morning hearty and sound.

In a state of shock, and sometimes with her voice choked with tears, it became increasingly difficult for Pommaa to narrate her ordeal to this reporter. According to Pomaa, the driver strangely asked her to alight at the Awudome Cemetery junction and before she could raise any objection, the driver had diverted onto the cemetery road.

As she insisted and protested at the unusual behaviour of the driver, the driver shouted and pretended to be a ghost that lives at the Cemetery. With death starring her in the face, Pomaa became desperate and decided to jump from the taxi cab. Ironically, the cab driver who had earlier asked Pomaa to alight would not allow her to jump.

The driver who was sharing the front seat with Pomaa pinned the poor lady firmly on to the seat and prevented her from getting off.

After an intense struggle, however, she managed somehow to jump, but was still held at the wrist by the driver who sped off in the process dragging the woman over a distance of 60 metres.

Pomaa said she became unconscious in the process and only woke up to find herself on a hospital bed.

“It’s only by God’s intervention that I am still alive today”, she said.

She later told The Independent that she was told a taxi driver who saw her in a pool of blood on the Awudome cemetery road and brought her to the Ridge Hospital in Accra where she was treated and discharged on the following day.

Pomaa, who is now nursing her wounds at her Dansoman home said she reports daily to the Kaneshie police.

When The Independent contacted the Kaneshie police, Chief Inspector David Adrah said the incident had been reported to them and efforts are underway to track down the perpetrator(s).