Editorial: Toddler-Defiling Teachers Deserve A Hard Lesson

ACCORDING TO AN advertisement put out by the Ghana AIDS Commission, at least 200 Ghanaians get infected daily by the all-rampaging Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) virus.

That advert has been running for some time so it is possible that the prevalence rate has deteriorated, considering reports that the virus may have become a scourge in the rural areas. Thus the current prevalence rate could be anywhere between 200 and 500 per day, if not more.

And yet some immoral people, people who are supposed to be role models, seem not to care that the dynamics of existence have changed and have either stuck to their old ways of doing things or have even gone from bad to worse.

Imagine the story from Awutu Bawjiase that a 42- year-old teacher at the Awutu Stars Preparatory School has been remanded in prison custody by the Swedru Circuit Court for defiling five schoolgirls aged between SIX and 12 and pupils of the Awutu Bawjiase District Assembly, Presbyterian and Anglican primary schools!

Kwame Antwi-Boasiako, who pleaded not guilty to all the five counts of the charge, allegedly conceived a diabolical plan with which he entrapped the children who went into his sitting room every night to watch television.

According to prosecuting Detective Sergeant R. A. Boamah, any time the five victims, who stayed in the same vicinity, went into Antwi-Boasiako's room to watch television the accused would send them on errands leaving the one whose turn it was for him to defile.

The prosecutor told the judge, Mr Robert K. K. Asaase, that after defiling his victims, the accused cautioned them not to tell their parents, or he would kill them.

This went on, till August 9, 2004, when the girls gathered as usual to go and watch Television, and one of the victims declared her intention not to honour the request of the accused if he should send them on errands again.

When the mother of one of the girls wanted to know why, she spilled the beans on their nightly ordeal at the hands of the randy teacher.

Detective Sergeant Boamah disclosed that when the mothers of the five girls confronted the accused, he admitted his guilt and offered to compensate them. After arraignment, the accused told the court that he was “under the influence of Satan” when he committed the offence.

Though we disapprove of the Ghanaian male idiosyncrasy of bedding a woman in every town he visits or attends a funeral in, the GYE NYAME CONCORD is democratic enough to allow everyone his whims and fancies, so long as they are not injurious to others, they are practised on consenting adults and the perpetrators are ready to bear the consequences of their foibles.

But we find it totally appalling, and a very bad taste, for someone, who obviously is a sex manic, to refuse to cough out the money to visit the red light district for his daily tonic but forces himself on six-year-old toddlers.

The likes of Antwi-Boasiako of Awutu Bawjiase, if indeed proved guilty of the charge preffered against him, ought to be put away for a long time. They are the type of wolves in sheep clothing that Ghana no longer needs.

Imagine the psychological trauma of a six-year-old being rammed with a fully agitated mojo of an adult; the long-term damage to such an embryonic womb, possibly leading to permanent infertility. Beyond that think of the death sentence that he may have imposed on the five young girls if he has the AIDS virus; and it is quite possible he has it since such a person would have consorted with prostitutes in the past to satisfy his inordinate lust.

The report of Antwi-Boasiako's remand in custody said doctors had confirmed that the girls' virginity had been broken; however, there was no indication that they were equally tested for the AIDS virus.

GYE NYAME CONCORD calls on the Inspector-General of Police or the Ministry of Health to make available the necessary funds today for the girls to undergo the AIDS test so that the trial judge would be properly guided in sentencing Antwi-Boasiako if found guilty.

His plea in court that he acted under the influence of Satan is just a play on the Ghanaian's proclivity to “fama Nyame”. Good as it is as a precaution against taking things too far, the grace it offers should not be available to deliberate offenders.

All the holy books of religion enjoin us to pray without ceasing as the battle of life is one against unseen principalities and powers; anyone who does not heed the call and opens him or herself to negative influences from the devil has himself to blame. He should be made to face the music squarely, without any quarter being given him.