Public anger has erupted across social media following the emergence of a video showing a man allegedly making sexual advances toward a young girl who was hawking avocados, reportedly offering her ₦1,000 to follow him to a hidden location.
The video was posted on Instagram on Monday by popular content creator LordZeus, who personally confronted the suspect and filmed the exchange, sending shockwaves through online communities.
Faced with the camera, the suspect flatly denied the accusation and attempted to claim the girl as his daughter.
The child, however, told a different story, revealing that the man had walked up to her and proposed that she accompany him somewhere private for sexual contact, dangling a ₦1,000 payment as bait.
She told those gathered that even after she turned him down, the man pulled out the money and waved it at her in a further attempt to wear down her resistance.
As the confrontation unfolded, a number of people who had gathered at the scene stepped in to defend the suspect, arguing that he suffered from a mental disorder.
Several among them added that the young avocado seller was not the only child he had previously targeted.
•“Leave him, he’s not well,” one of the voices in the crowd said.
LordZeus dismissed the defence outright, arguing that mental illness, whether genuine or fabricated, could not serve as a shield for predatory behaviour directed at children.
The content creator also turned his lens on a broader social concern, urging parents across the country to reconsider exposing young girls to the dangers of street hawking, warning that many victims of harassment on the streets suffer in silence and never come forward.
Drawing from his own childhood experience as a street hawker, LordZeus wrote on his page, “Parents please, no matter how hard life gets, do not allow your girl child, especially underage ones, to hawk on the streets alone. Even if they must hawk, hawk alongside them. They are constantly at risk of sexual harassment, and many of them will never speak up.”
He stressed that protecting the safety and dignity of the girl child must remain a collective responsibility that takes precedence over every other consideration.
Watch video HERE
