What is this?

Lucas Agboyie, a 22-year-old has confessed to strangling a 7-year-old girl and having sex with the corpse for three hours. If such a confession cannot break the heart of many a parent we do not know what else can.

Although it happened a little over a year ago or so the case has just began in court. We have been given an insight into how the crime was committed and therefore in a better position to appreciate what the little girl went through before dying. It can be imagined the pain her mother went through as the idiot narrated how he ended the girl’s life.

Many girls have lost their lives or maimed for life having fallen victims of such sadists and perverts whose motive for their actions can best be understood by themselves.

We are compelled to ask whether children, especially girls, are safe under the prevailing atmosphere in the country. Such characters live with us in the neighbourhood and unless they are exposed when they commit heinous crimes as the one under review, we will never know the stuff they are made of.

If this character does not have any psychiatric challenge and is certified normal by a psychiatrist then the matter becomes even more stunning. Why would a normal person kill an innocent little girl and proceed to do what he did?

We now understand why the best place for some human beings is not among us but in the four corners of the prison; their conduct too dangerous.

When the story broke, a lot of theories were spawn around it and even names. We are glad that now the matter is being heard and whatever has been pushed to the backburners, same would be brought to the front.

Details of such cases should be made public so that parents and even their children would know that the environment is not made up of only sane and decent persons but wicked ones for whom killing even little girls does not mean a thing.

Our children must constantly be reminded about how to keep themselves safe. Gone are the days when every adult was an uncle or auntie. Such kids were thought to show respect to adults and go on errands for them.

Today such requests to go and buy something for a mason or carpenter in an uncompleted building could be a precursor to defilement or even death.

Children must be protected by all means lest they die such avoidable and painful deaths.

We would once more implore Ghanaians to be security conscious and to take action, such as being citizen vigilante, when they suspect something untoward.

At the time the little girl entered the container where the suspect was waiting, somebody could have seen her but did nothing to find out whether all was well until she was strangled.