Neocolonialist J. A. Kufour & a “Motorway”

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has dismissed assertions that Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom must be accorded all the credit for securing the $547 million under the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) for the … Highway. Prior to the commissioning of the highway on Wednesday, pro-Nduom groups called for the newly-constructed highway to be named after Dr Nduom instead of its official name of the George Walker Bush Motorway.. ‘[Dr. Nduom] was not the originator of the idea; in fact he came virtually at the tail end,’ Kufuor stated. ‘But the team that worked the detail of the compact was there right from the beginning.’” (Ghanaweb, Feb 17, 2012)

Dependency
Breeds children of inferiorities
Breeds chilling insanities

Ah! About the said Motorway
Oh! Kufour
Nkrumah was the originator
Not you, Kufour
Not Mills
Not Ndoum
Not Bush
So it should be Nkrumah Motorway
So it shouldn’t be Bush Motorway

As foreigners take our gold
Diamonds
Bauxite
Timber
Oil
As foreigners give us pittance
Of Aids
Of Grants
Of Loans
Of Millennium Challenge Accounts
Our dependency breeds all
Gullibility
Stupidity
Absurdity
It is the lunacy of dependency

Ah! The $547million MCA
It is a dependency gift
It is not a free gift
Ghana pays for it
Ghana will pay the principal
Ghana will pay the interest
No state gifts $547million
Bush didn’t give us a gift
International aid is never free
Vultures feed on the dead

Call the motorway any name
Don’t call it Bush Motorway
George Walker Bush Motorway
Don’t call it Bush Motorway
Let us call it Famers Motorway
Let us call it Ndoum Motorway
Call it Ga-Mashie Motorway
Call it Kufour Motorway
Call it Limann Motorway
Call it Sgt. Adjettey Motorway
Call it Ghana Motorway
Call it Justice Ollenu Motorway
Call it Rawlings Motorway
Call it Nkrumah Motorway

Even call it Atta Ayi Motorway
Even call it Woyome Motorway
Each empowers
Each conscientizes

Ah! Bush Motorway
That disempowers
That benights us

Kufour and Co
Mills and Co
Benighted troubadours
Ah! The truly brainwashed
With brainwashing narratives
Ah! The ecstasy of dependency
Ah! The best comes from the West

Clueless in a rudderless state
Rudderless Ghana
Led by shallow elites
Elitist thieves
Pen-armed robbers
The benighted thieves
The inferiorized thieves
Of dependency
Their narratives of absurdity
Depend on foreigners
For tooth-picks
For tomatoes
For chicken legs
For used underwear
For used tooth-brush
For naming our Motorways

Ah! The killers of the dream
In crucibles of inferiorities
Elitist pen-armed robbers
Ah! Quit the circus of inferiority
Name the highway after a Ghanaian
Restore our people to history
Restore our independence to reality
Restore our youth to local histories
Restore our pride in ourselves

*Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained
oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania
with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In
her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical”
poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com