*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.



Accra, April 28, GNA - Vice President John Dramani Mahama has given the assurance

that both he and the President would move into the Jubilee House as soon as

arrangements were complete (Ghanaweb, April 28, 2010).



Our Golden Jubilee House

Our Presidential Palace

The House that JJ couldn’t burn

JJ’s “fire” couldn’t burn it

Golden Jubilee House

Anchored in Flagstaff House

Nkrumah’s eternal home

Golden Jubilee House

One of our best projects

Oh! Kufour did it

Our postcolonial coming of age

After Akosombo Dam

After Tema industrial city

After Job 600

After Bank of Ghana

After Supreme Court

After 1000s of school

After 100s of health centers

Oh Kwame Nkrumah

The sage & visionary

The Father of infrastructure



Our Golden Jubilee House

Our Palace

Oh! Kufour’s handiwork

Jubilee House

The NDC called it all

A poultry farm

A useless project

A toilet house

A “corrupt” project

The NDC protested

Screamed, shouted

It was their poultry farm

The majestic house

That Rawlings never built

Couldn’t built

In 20 years of rule

The house JJ couldn’t “fire”

Couldn’t burn down

Jubilee never burnt down

So Mills can have it now



Atta Mills is free now

Set free by JJ Rawlings

Fire-man who burns all

He who burns houses

But keep cars, dogs

But couldn’t burn Jubilee

Atta Mills is free

Set free and free as air

And Ghana is free

Free from ATLANTIC slavery

Free from mental slavery

In a slave castle of gloom

From the castle of doom

Where our forebears died

Where freedom died

Where tyranny was born



Atta Mills is free now

Atta Mills is free to move

Set free by JJ Rawlings

Set free and free as air

And Ghana is free

Free from JJ’s horrors

The Castle of suffering

Broken-bottle-hair cuts

Cement-gari parties

Organized beatings

Blade-addled scarifications

Humiliations in nakedness

The Castle

Where coward Ghanaians

Allowed JJ to flourish

Where elitist socialist thrived

Stole money

Praised JJ as they stole

The thievery elites

Stole in a sordid place

Where Arkaah’s soul died

Where Arkaah was ganged upon

Ganged upon by who born dogs



Atta Mills is free now

Atta Mills is free to move

Set free by JJ Rawlings

Set free and free as air

Set free to praise Kufour

The architect of Jubilee House

The house that wouldn’t burn

Burn from JJ’s divisiveness

Ghana is free

Free from slavery

Free from mental slavery

Free from old hurts

Disappointments

Benightedness

Ghana is free

Free from the Castle

Dungeons of blood

Of Mental enslavement

Golden Jubilee the House

That JJ couldn’t burn

So Mills will use Jubilee

A metaphor of our politics

Politics of divisiveness



*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