By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

Wofa Panyin,
you cut such
a traffic figure
in the realm
of human rights,
you must be wondering
why all these foreign
diplomats
are crawling
and vaulting
over one another,
claiming
your rights record
was all spic
and span –
maybe
these debonair
poets and
market-square
praise-singers
have been living
on a planet
yet to be known
and named…
and,
of course,
it is all too clear
by their mien,
skin tones,
hair textures,
accents and tongues
that they belong
to strange lands
and nations
beyond and across
the far-flung waves
of the ocean-sea…
for in Tripoli,
you were completely
AWOL,
and in Darfur,
indefinitely
out of town,
though you never
turned down
a single invite
to carouse
in Sirte,
Benghazi
and Khartoum…
and on those AWOL days,
Uncle Tee,
I must confess,
you put a heck
of us rights
advocates
to shame
and beyond;
on those AWOL days,
I felt so deeply
ashamed I nearly
disowned
my kinship
and nationality
with you –
Togbui Avaklasu
was no better,
of course,
militant bluster
and all;
yes,
Fiaga Avaklasu
was far worse
than your wildest
imagination,
far worse
than you ever
could have been –
for legend has it,
even as bombs
and scud-missiles
dropped on Tripoli,
in the palatial
courtyard of
the Rat-of-Sirte,
Fiaga Avaklasu,
hat in hand
and crotch,
was darn
too busy
collecting
and cleaning
bloodied silver pieces
of dinars
to give
a hoot…
ironically though,
today
he smugly roams
the streets of
Mogadishu
claiming to be
the new messiah
of peace
and joy,
foolishly claiming
had you heeded
his call
to round up,
cage up
your clansmen
and women,
cuff up
the Kufuor gang
and parade it
up and down
the broad streets
of Accra,
he generously
would have added
seven months
to your membership
in our clan –
on the latter count,
though,
Uncle Tee,
you have only
yourself
to blame;
for as the gray ones
are wont to say,
if nothing had stepped
on tinder-wood,
it wouldn’t
have scrunched…
in short,
my beloved
Uncle Tee,
you made
your cozy bed
with a murderous
barbarian,
and so today
your public image
is tainted
and spattered
with blood…
still,
you are
the perfect
mirage,
readily mistaken
for a pond
by the naïve
and
untutored –

7/27/12