‘He doesn’t maintain his boys!’ fed-up mum
‘It’s not a crime to be broke!’ singer’s retort
Popular Afro pop singer, Astley Gops, is in for a royal showdown with his ex, a fed-up Botswana Football Association (BFA) employee planning to kick the star where it hurts the most: his pocket!
Barobi Nwako, a CAF coaching instructor, has told The Voice she intends to drag her former lover to court for failing to maintain their 13-year-old twins, something she says has been ongoing for several years.
However, the ‘Mama Nkokodi’ hitmaker has hit back at his baby mama and insists he hardly has a Thebe to his name.
This, despite being installed as headman of arbitration at Goo-Moiphisi ward in Letlhakeng village in March last year – a position that typically pays between P4,000 to P6,000 a month.
“It’s not a crime to be broke!” was the 50-year-old Kgosi Shobuwa Gopadileng’s retort when The Voice contacted him this week.
According to Nwako, 41, Gopadileng used to occasionally send P200 as lunch money for school but it is now years since he made any effort to support his boys.
“At first, he would say he was not making money from music and I understood. Now he has been a chief for more than a year and he is still not helping me,” grumbled Nwako, whose three-year relationship with the artist fizzled out in 2009.
The boys were just five months old at the time.
At her wits’ end, the upset mum says she is left with little option but to seek the legal route to force Gopadileng to fulfill his fatherly duties.
“It is very expensive to raise boys as a single mother. When they want grasshopper school shoes, I buy two pairs, which are more than a thousand. They just completed their Primary School Leaving Examinations and I owe the school development fee. I tried to talk to this man and he is not willing to change. I am now left with no alternative but to take him to court, the law will force him to maintain his kids!” warned Nwako, who claimed Gopadileng has not seen nor visited his sons since being made headman 19 months ago.
Dismissing his one-time flame as ‘being dramatic’, Gopadileng claimed she was well aware his pockets were empty but promised to send P400 month end.
“There is no money in music and she knows that. I will send her P400 at the end of this month because she called last week telling me about the school development fee,” vowed the artist, before accusing his ex of stalking him.
“She must stop stalking me and monitoring how I live my life. I think she saw on my social media status that I went on holiday to Namibia with my wife to celebrate my 50th birthday – but what she doesn’t know is that I was sponsored by some company in Maun,” he said.
Laughing off the threat of a possible court date, Kgosi Gopadileng, who admitted he could not recall the last time he sent money or bought anything for his twins, concluded, “She can take me to court, I will show proof that I can’t afford!”