By Omotayo Edubi
Remember child star, Emmanuel Nii Adokwei, who played Strika, alongside American actor Idris Elba in the movie “Beast of No Nation?” Well, dude now sells coconuts on the streets of Ghana.
In contrast to fellow actor Abraham Attah, who has since achieved world wide fame and recognition, Strika on the other hand has been begging for alms on the streets of Accra.
In an earlier interview, Strika claimed that he never received his $30,000 salary for his role in the flick.
He stated that his manager, Kofi Robert, retained the funds on his behalf until he turned 18.
The media and other interested parties volunteered to help the young man regain his feet when the story first broke a few years ago, but nothing came out of that.
In 2020, Strika revealed that he started smoking weed before he turned 14 and that he hid his smoking habit from the crew of the movie while on set.
“Before I was discovered, no one knew that I was into smoking weed, including my scouts, I hid it from them till I was caught,” he disclosed.
Narrating how he was caught smoking weed in school, Strika said, “One of the students I smoked with mistakenly placed a piece of the substance at a wrong place and our alarm was blown. I am using the word our because I was not the only person, there were students from other countries who were also into that act.”
Beasts of No Nation was released in 2015. It is an American-Ghanaian war drama film centred on an orphan who is forced into guerrilla warfare alongside other African kids. It is essentially the story of child soldiers.