*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

According to Ekow Spio-Garbrah “President Jerry John Rawlings… Ghana’s
longest-serving head of state … tenure saw the preservation of peace in Ghana at
a time when most of West Africa was engulfed in crises… (Abridged from Ghanaweb,
January 29, 2011).”

The pen-thievery educated elites
Products of cocoa farmers’ sweat
Pen-wielding mercenaries
With subscriptions of lies
One sided stomach politicians
With forked-tongue speeches
Politicians in the pay of lies
In the pay of Castle houseflies
Killers of the eternal dream
Of Nkrumah’s eternal dream
Of pan-African renaissance
Of privileging our Blackness
Of pedestaling our Africanity
Oh! Nkrumah’s dreams deferred
Oh! Nkrumah’s dreams aborted
By our fetishization of crooks
By our worship of dictators
By our cult-ing of murderers
By our sanitization of thieves
By our adoration of arsonists

DOKITA WHO
Spews it all
Spews garbage
Spews to curry favor
Spews to win favor
Spewing before cultic JJ
Spewing before Konongo Mills
Spewing for a ministerial post
Spewing GARBAGED history
Spewing it all
That JJ brought peace
That JJ preserved peace
That JJ nurtured peace

JJ Rawlings
The seer of political hooliganism
The know-all sanctimonious goon
The vessel of acidic oppression
Those forced to drink cement-gari
Those abducted, slaughtered
Firing squads, murdering squads
Those impaled by kangaroo courts
JJ Rawlings never brought peace
Curfew never brought peace
Curfew aborted nightly choices
Curfew stalled ontological sleep
Curfew led to abductions
Of the would-be slain judges
Of the B. B. Bismarcks

JJ Rawlings never brought peace
Females lost their peace of mind
Females dishonored in the genitalia
Soldier-lamps in their genitalia
Oh! EYE KANEA (genitalia is open)
Oh! EYE HANN (pry into it all)

JJ Rawlings never brought peace
Shortage of petrol
Shortage of kerosene
Shortage of food
Our stomachs churned
Our minds lost peace
Ah! The Rawlings’ Chain
Chain of acidic hunger
Chain of abject poverty
Chain of utter destitution

JJ Rawlings never brought peace
Abduction of opponents
Demonization of opponents
Murdering of opponents
Broken-bottle hair-cuts
Seizure of properties
Baptism of nepotism
Avalanche of tribalism

JJ Rawlings never brought peace
Chieftaincy disputes
Asantes and Brongs
Konkombas and Nanumbas
Akuapem – Guans and Akans
Hmm! JJ’s divide and rule

1979 the watershed of chaos
Flowing in political gutters
Flowing in cadres’ veins
Flowing in politicians’ potbellies

The pen-thieves educated elites
Products of cocoa farmers’ sweat
Pen-wielding mercenaries
One sided stomach politicians
Politicians in the pay of lies
In the pay of Castle houseflies
Killers of the eternal dream
Of Nkrumah’s eternal dream
Of pan-African renaissance
Of privileging our Blackness
Of pedestaling our Africanity
Oh! Nkrumah’s dreams deferred
Oh! Nkrumah’s dreams aborted
By our fetishization of crooks
By our worship of dictators
By our cult-ing of thieves

*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