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'In the name of Jesus, die' - Ivy's rant at journalist
Peter Moyo, one of the first journalists who broke the story about Pastor Admire Kasi's illicit affair with his foster daughter, singer Ivy Kombo, today remembers the terrifying moment Kombo screamed down the telephone: "In the name of Jesus, die Peter! In the name of Jesus die!"
By Peter Moyo
I WENT through a painful period after first querrying Ivy Kombo's marriage to Edmore Moyo and her pregnancy which can only be described as mysterious.
After my first interview with her for the Standard newspaper, Ivy realised how she had blown it by attacking South African gospel singer, Vuyo Mokoena, saying: "His muscles would not turn me on."
When she realised what she had just told me and a colleague in our interview, she immediately called Kasi.
"Baba taurai navakomana ava (Father talk to these men)," she said.
Kasi took us into his office and started talking about how he could guarantee a $40 million loan if we dropped the issue. We refused his bait and after that, my painful episode started.
It was Monday and the story had been penciled for the next Sunday. Ivy would phone crying, begging me not to run the story. As the days went by, she started telling me she was going to commit suicide if I went ahead with the story.
She would phone me at 3am telling me she was about to commit suicide. I reminded her she was a child of God, someone respectable. I told her than in fact, it I was supposed to be the one seeking guidance from her.
By Saturday, she was now on a suicidal mission which I believed to be real. I refused to drop the story. I told her if she indeed went ahead with the suicide, I would be the first person to write the story and tell the world why she had killed herself.
"Ah, I am depressed, ndirikungofunga kuti ndingopinda mumota ndongo driver kana ikabuda muroad ikawira mu bridge ndizvozvo (I am thinking if I drive my car and it veers off the road and plunges down a bridge that's it)," she said Saturday evening, a day before publication.
But Sunday came and the newspaper flew off the news stands. It was the toast of the town. And no-one had committed suicide.
I thought the black cloud which had preceded the printing of the story was over but then, later that afternoon, threats started coming. Ivy Kombo never hid her identity. She would phone and then as I answered she would say, "In the name of Jesus die Peter! In the name of Jesus die!" before hanging up.
It was a voice full of hate and anger. This continued for the whole week. There is so much she would say on the phone - some of it unprintable in a family publication.
She would phone me at night, during the day, in the morning and shout the "Die!" messages and use God's name to lace it . "In the name of Jesus, be cursed!," she said once.
I then remembered that in the original story, I had left out a lot of details about the paternity of the child. I had once featured Edmore Moyo in my prior column, Spouse Talk, and he had told me he was due to leave for UK.
There had been rumours that Kasi, sensing the ZAOGA church elders' plan to defrock him, had bought Moyo to marry Ivy and cover his tracks.
Moyo on the other hand, didn't look like a person in love during our Spouse Talk interview. His relatives were also up in arms. He had also told me during our January 2002 interview that he would be leaving for UK soon.
And for sure on 28 February 2002, he phoned one of our correspondents from the airport. He was leaving for London. So my next story was going to be centred on the paternity of Sammy-Joe.
Ivy was now pregnant -- and note that this was now February 2003. The only time she had tried to visit Edmore since his departure had been in September 2002. A very close confidante of Ivy had told me she had been "chased away" by Edmore, hence the chances of copulation were none.
Edmore's relatives also confirmed she had not spent a day at Edmore's house in the UK but now she was heavily pregnant.
The dates of her visiting UK and the days of her giving birth were in conflict as well. It showed she would be two months early than the supposed September date of copulation.
She later phoned me to try and change the date of her visit to UK to July -- something denied by Edmore's relatives and also in conflict with our earlier stories of her visit before our reportage of the scandal.
I went ahead to write the story of the parternity, going further to quiz Ivy's former classmates who told us her first contact with Kasi was when she was in Form 3, when Kasi would come to her boarding school with gifts and groceries.
Another issue which has never been discussed is that Kasi also fathered the son of Ivy's twin sister. She too had been sent to UK to avoid public scrutiny. A gardener at Ivy's home also confirmed to us that ivy and kasi were staying together like husband and wife. A maid confirmed the same.
So the paternity issue went straight to Kasi. Seeing as it was, we ran the story. My Editor, Bornwell Chakaodza, decided to remove the story from front page to the back pages. But the story was a seller.
Ivy was filming the tourism video Come to Victoria Falls Down in Zimbabwe when the story broke. Her threats continued but she failed to achieve anything.
A women's organsation, FAMZ, came to her aid. Using donor money from the British Council, they organised a workshop on gender issues. They invited me and I attended but pulled out after realising the workshop had been set up by these feminists trying to attack me. That is what the workshop generated into -- with the core issue on the agenda being about Ivy Kombo and Peter Moyo.
Many of them were seasoned journalists, telling me how I should not have gone to print with Ivy's story. Naturally, I told them to go to hell.
For Ivy, he music career -- built around Christian teachings -- was over, and her subsequent shows flopped. It was now clear that Kasi's Nguva Yakwana project was doomed as well leading to their flight to the UK.
Years later, I am
happy finally that the truth has come out with Kasi's announcement that
he will wed his "daughter" in February next year.
Moyo now works for South African television
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