*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Doctors at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital are refusing to admit patients in
critical condition due to broken down life-support equipment at the Intensive Care
Unit. They are threatening to suspend operations outright until management fixes the
faulty ventilators, which have been down for the past four months… under-cover
investigations at the ICU reveal five people have died within the last four days as
a result of the malfunctioning equipment” (Ghanaweb January 6, 2012).

Oh! Komfo Anokye Hospital
Sod-cut in 1954
Planted in Anokye’s precinct
Anokye’s eternal abode
The Immaculacy of Okomfo
Eternal place of Anokye
With a sword of flowers
Glittering with the sun
Bathed in pristine dew
Wombed by Asase Yaa

Oh! Komfo Anokye Hospital
Sod-cut in 1954
Oh! Today our death trap
Trappings of robbers’ cars
Pen-robbers in cars, tractors
Cars instead of equipment
Cars trawling in potholes
Cars that evokes it all
Of materialism in decay
Of pigs wreathed in suits
So we go to die
In Komfo Anokye
In Korle Bu
In Tetteh Quarshie
In Effia Nkwanta

Komfo Anokye Hospital
Sod-cut in 1954
Poised for greatness
Nursed by Nkrumah
Pruned by Nkrumah
Nkrumah’s child
Of health
Hope
Healing
Our second largest nest
Of health-delivery
Of hoping hope
Of life over death
For the whole Asante Region
Referral for Brong Ahafo
Referral for the “North”

Komfo Anokye Hospital
Sod-cut in 1954
The decade of hope
Poised for healing
Healing from slavery
Primed for healing
Healing from colonialism
Predatory seasons of anomy

Komfo Anokye Hospital
Sod-cut in 1954
Prosopography of aspirations
From all and for all
Even from Korle Frogs
Even from Paga Crocodiles
Winds of hope
From Aburi to Alavanyo
From Tamale to Tarkwa
Of Africanizing aspiration

Ah! Imposing Okomfo Anokye
Charismatic kaleidoscope
Horizoning statehood
Holding the wand of health
Anchored on eternal firmament
The royal grounds of unity
Elegant structures of renewal
The graceful hill of hope
Ah! Okomfo Anokye
The balm of health
The solace of the sick
The consolation of pain
The tranquilizer of sorrow

Okomfo Anokye is famished
Murdered by murderous elites
The postcolonial elites
The pen-armed robbers
With a cargo-cult of cars
Putting self before nation
Our tragedy of dreamlessness
Of losing nuggets of hope
Like elephants on the Sahara
Of celebrating mediocrity
Like vultures dancing on prey
Our riotous clarity of greed
Precipicing our rudderless state
Adrift in decay, death
Adrift in decline, disgrace
Squalid like Korle Lagoon
Oh! Our moment of excellence

*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