Opinions of Monday, 3 July 2023

Columnist: Charles Yeboah (Sir Lord)

Sarkodie should bow down his head in shame for disrespecting womanhood

Yvonne Nelson and Sarkodie Yvonne Nelson and Sarkodie

In my native Goka, we say: "kɔfirikwansoɔ na ɔware temanmuhunu". To wit: it's the idle stranger who marries a useless native woman.

And in Sarkodie, the acclaimed Ghanaian rapper, the above Bono adage seem to rare its ugly head, vis-à-vis the estranged relationship he had with an actress and now author, Yvonne Nelson. A woman he now tells the whole world that she's a whore who subsisted on street-life (sic).

Sarkodie is a disgrace to 'manhood'

He is the idle kofirikwansoɔ stranger that marries the useless native whore in the woman she now takes to the cleaners. If I'll have my way to chair the gathering of 'Players Club', I'll sanction him for bringing shame to the Men of Valour fraternity. Now our market will surely dwindle in value. (Only legends can relate).

Yvonne Nelson released her memoir not long ago, claiming in a part that an affair she had with Sarkodie developed a seed. She informed Sarkodie who was three years her junior (25 and 22 years respectively for Yvonne and Sark then).

Sarkodie denied paternity of the unborn baby, and in the end the foetus was aborted. That alone ended Yvonne in an unforgettable traumatic distress.

In her book, Yvonne, though was pained to be jilted by Sarkodie whom she later learned came into her life because his true love was schooling abroad; never used expletives or denigrating tongue against the rapper to the wildest imagination of nonpartisan and objective reader like myself.

She even praised Sarkodie at some point in that book titled: I'm Not Yvonne Nelson, that the acclaimed fastest rapper recorded a song to support her nationwide protest against intermittent power cuts in the country during president John Mahama's regime, dubbed #Dumsor Must Stop.

This was about half a decade after their love affairs ended in a moral crime of killing a baby she never knew of his or her future, but caused the murder because of the fear of nursing a fatherless baby as she the actress's case has been from birth till today.

She never, and still does not know her father. And no one will wish same for his or her progeny. Especially when she lived in a society that cared much about such parenthood question, and will with stigma, prejudice you anytime because you don't have a cover and protection in a father figure. Your actions and inactions are attributed to how your father train you at home if you're a child growing up in Ghana.

Such had been Yvonne's pain, and she expressed so with utmost decorum and circumspection in the book I've loved reading and will recommend for all readers.

Sarkodie on the other hand, apparently goaded on by his many hollow cymbals of flies friends, he has released a rejoinder in his comfortable Twi language to rebut Yvonne Nelson's 'I'm Not Yvonne Nelson' widely patronised book.

Days after its released, Yvonne's book was third most sought after memoir on the Amazon trading platform.

Truth be told, Sarkodie should have closed his mouth. He would have been deemed wiser than now he has responded to the claims in the book.

The singer admitted in his villainous unentertaining single song, 'Try Me', that though he has bought a copy of the book, but he's yet to read it.

A typical Ghanaian half-baked literate, he never reads a page of a book, but will have tens of pages comments to make about what is written in there. The average Ghanaian student only reads seriously when he or she prepares to write a promotional or certificate awarding exams, and this studiousness even happens when the candidate cannot scheme out ways to cheat in the exams.

Sarkodie, without reading his former girlfriend's book, upon hearsay of synopsis from the book, he went on a rampaging riot against an innocuous memoir that meant no malice against a colleague artiste she gave all the benefits of the doubts to come clear with responses.

Sarkodie with this release of his acidic verbal diarrhoea exposes his insecurities, and reveals his level of intelligence and maturity.

I wonder if he's aware of the #Me Too Movement that got women all over the world stripping naked of so called 'big men' that took advantage of womanhood, and landed some entertainment gurus in Hollywood like Harvey Weinstein behind bars?

Within the storm, one man I have now come to admire, most survived and won his case against another woman who brought sexual assault charges against him following the aftermath of their marriage that hit the rocks. I'm talking about Jonny Depp and the Amber Heard infamous media frenzy case last year, in the US Court.

When the actress, Amber Heard filed a case in court against her former husband, actor Jonny Depp, when the woman played the victim, the man did not show his muscles to appear villainous in the court, but also reflected the victim mirror presented to him. In the end, quite unusual, the hated man in the court of public opinion triumphed gainfully in the judicial court.

Such should be how our ilk's of true sagely noblemen act. We must respect womanhood unconditionally even as we assume our natural position in creation as the head of the family. We don't fight women!

Concluding it, if it's a circus stage-play the two silver-screen actors have started releasing in episodes to viewers, then Yvonne Nelson has won the public sympathy now against Sarkodie in this scene. The 'I'm Not Yvonne Nelson' author has beaten to pulp, and dragged in the mud the 'Try Me' rapper in this chapter of the battle.

Sarkodie should apologise to womanhood in the next episode or bow down his head in shame and exit the arena unceremoniously.