Flawed Northern Leaders: Dead Guinea Fowls & Trees

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, PhD

“Contrary to claims by officials of Asongtaba Cottage Industries (ACI) and Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) the implementing agency of the GH¢32million (¢320billion) afforestation project, that the project was well on course, a visit to Asongtaba’s Vea site showed dead trees with goats having a field day on the site. Asongtaba was the same company contracted by SADA for the controversial GH¢15million guinea fowl project which had nothing to show but a paltry 600 birds and 20 eggs” (Ghanaweb, April 15, 2013).

The Northern elites
The predators
The opportunists
They blame Akans for their poverty
They blame Akans for their marginalization
They blame Akans for their Zongo wars
They prey on carcasses of the masses
Of the Northern masses
The North
The cradle of poverty
The cradle of marginalization
The cradle of political violence
Where poverty is kinship
Where violence is kingship

The Northern elites
Flamboyant vultures
Territorial vultures
Savanna vultures
Soaring over the South
Scouting the South
In kaleidoscopic batakari
Peacocks of education
Soar on free education
They have it all
They are vultures of poverty
They are tractor predators
They are Guinea fowl predators
They are tree-planting predators
They use SADA to saddle the North
They use SADA to sadden the North

The Northern elites
Sad sad saddled saga
Of greed
Of opportunism
Of lost causes
Of abandoning the North
Of promoting sectionalism
Sectionalizing North & South
Sad sad saga
Nesting self-renewed poverty
SADA is a sad sad saga
Of the Northern elites
The true predators of the North
Paga crocodiles gone berserk

The Northern elites
Fail their people
Free education
Has become free poverty
The breadbasket of poverty
The North lacks it all
They lack water
They lack electricity
They lack toilets
But they have it all too
They have schools under trees
They have witchcraft camps
They have widows camp
They have men who seize girls
They have the pito wars
They have the Guinea fowl wars
They have tuo safi wars
Fratricidal wars
Sisterhood wars
Brotherhood wars

The Northern elites
In mental shackles
Generate agency
Of civil wars
Guinea fowl wars
Tuo safi wars
Pito wars
Generate agency
Of patricide
Of poverty
Of patriarchy
Of misogyny
Of witch camps

The Northern elites
SADA is a sad sad saga
The true predators of the North
The Paga crocodiles gone berserk
The Northern elites
They have it all
Free education
Freely using Akan cocoa
Freely using Akan gold
Free education
Ah! They promote Guinea fowl wars
Ah! They monopolize tractors for farmers
Ah! They grow trees for schools under trees
Hmm! Yet blame Akans for the woes of the North

*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. My poems and essays on
Ghanaweb and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in part for any academic or
scholarly work without my written permission.