*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema

FRONTISPIECE: Excerpted from Kofi Awonoor, “Songs of Sorrow”
“Dzogbese Lisa has treated me thus
It has led me among the sharps of the forest
Returning is not possible
And going forward is a great difficulty
The affairs of this world are like the chameleon faeces
Into which I have stepped
When I clean it cannot go.”

From George Kofi Awonoor-Williams
To Kofi Awonoor
Kpegah’s craft is at hand
Oh! Awonoor was like Akufo-Addo
Awonoor too changed his name
Ah! Kpegah has rejected Awonoor’s corpse
Kpegah says Awonoor is not Awonoor
Kpegah says Awonoor is alive in the Volta
Awonoor has just gone home in peace
Not to be bothered by Kpegah
Not to be bothered by his accusers
Those troubadouring his anti-Akanism

Kofi Awonoor
His fine mind
His incandescent penmanship
His brilliance, his radiance
He was not like Ayi Kwei Armah
He was not like Ama Ata Aidoo
He was not like Atu Kwei Okai
Kofi Awonoor was Awonoor

Kofi Awonoor
The warrior of the Volta
Has gone home
Has crossed the Volta
In search of ethnic sanity
Where kinship is sanity
In search of Ewe supremacy
Excluding Akyem
Excluding Akuapem
Excluding Denkyira
Excluding Akwamu
Excluding Bono
Excluding Kwahu
Excluding Fante
Excluding Asante

Kofi Awonoor
The owner of our Earth
The Earth of our Brother
This Earth has gone home
Our Brother has crossed the Volta
Our Brother has gone to his home

Kofi Awonoor
The great Ewe nationalist
The man who put Ewe first
The man who put Ghana second
The true patriot
Has crossed the Volta
In search of ethnic supremacy
To rest in peace

Kofi Awonoor
The great Ewe patriot
Rawlings’ majestic hero
Kofi Awonoor the gifted
The cornerstone of JJ JJ
Of JJ’s political hallucination
Of his Dzelukope dreams
Of his probity
Of his accountability
Of his Ghana Revolution
Birthed by Awonoor
Patented by Awonoor

Professor Kofi Awonoor
The owner of our Earth
This Earth of our Brother
His eminence
Great poet of the Volta
Great politician of the Volta
Great patriarch of Mills’ Castle
Great patriot of the Volta
Great pillar of JJ Rawlings
Great paragon of AFRC/PNDC’s inhumanities
Great passages of stratospheric anti-Akan doctrines
Great prophet of everlasting Trokosi
Kofi has gone home
Has taken his Earth beyond the Volta
The owner of our Earth
This Earth of our Brother
Has finally crossed the Volta
To rest in his peace
Rest in peace Awonoor

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