Asantehene & Mount Crest: Education or Advertisement

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has enrolled in Mount Crest University
College in Accra, to pursue a programme in Master of Law (Chieftaincy Law). Mr.
Kwaku Ansah-Asare, Chancellor of the university, who made this known to the Times in
Accra on Tuesday, said the Asantehene was offered a place in the university in
recognition of his distinguished role in the adjudication of land disputes in
Asanteman. Mr. Ansah-Asare, a former Director of the Ghana Law School, said the
Asantehene had been able to handle some critical and delicate cases which had been
pending in the law courts for over 80 years” Ghanaweb November 2, 2011.

Nana Asantehene
Otumfuo Osei Tutu
The King of Kings
The King of Gold
The King of Wisdom
The King of Knowledge
King of Kings in Asante
Ah! Beyond the Birim
Ah! Beyond the Ofin
King of Good Causes
Don’t demean Sika Gua
Don’t lend your title to all
To inconsequential causes
Passing advertisements
Posing in regalia ads
That melts with the sun
Don’t lend your name
To inconsequential causes
To backyard colleges
Mount Crest College
Cresting to nowhere

SCENE ONE
Here comes the Asantehene
Holding his school books
Holding his school bag
Doing all assignments
Doing fieldwork
Doing library research
Passing all written exams
Passing all oral exams
Writing a dissertation
Defending his thesis
So Asantehene gets an M. A.
Asantehene receives his M. A.
Fake M. A. that is

SCENE TWO
Here comes the Asantehene
Agog in Manhyia
Resplendent in kente
Enjoying it all
Having it all
Servants at hand
Scholars reading for him
Scribes writing exams for him
Linguists interpreting for him
Courtiers researching for him
So Asantehene gets an M. A.
Asantehene receives his M. A.
Fake M. A. that is

Nana Asantehene
So comes Mount Crest
Mushrooming Mount Crest
Free mushroom mushrooming
Mangled by Ansah-Asare
Happily set free by the NPP
With academic bankruptcy
Has mounted Mount Crest
Dangling Asantehene on it
On a precipice of ads
Advertising his school
His mushroom college

Ah! Asantehene mount
Ah! Mount Mount Crest
So mount the peak
So mount the Apex
So mount the Summit
So mount the pinnacle
So mount, mount & mount
And we fall flat in the face

Mount Crest is mushrooming
Mushrooming education for all
Using Asantehene as a bait
A bait to bait all Ghanaians
Mount Crest that is crestfallen
Mount crest is cresting
Cresting to nowhere

Nana Asantehene
Otumfuo Osei Tutu
The King of Kings
The King of Gold
The King of Wisdom
The King of Knowledge
King of Kings in Asante
Ah! Beyond the Birim
Ah! Beyond the Ofin
King of Good Causes
Don’t demean Sika Gua
Don’t lend your title to all
To inconsequential causes
Passing advertisements
Posing in regalia ads
That melts with the sun
Don’t lend your name
To inconsequential causes
To backyard colleges
Mount Crest College
Cresting to nowhere

*Akadu N. 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