*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.
CHAPTER 1: PREFACE TO JJ’S LIES
There is not a single extenuating factor that mitigates the dehumanization of Ghanaian women. Thus the sadly imploding Rawlings, the sadistic megalomaniac who has a mother, a wife, and daughters must know better than to deodorize his tribalistic and misogynistic reign of terror.
CHAPTER 2: FRONSTISPIECE - HUMANIZING BRUTALIZED WOMEN
** Dedicated to all market women who were brutalized by soldiers under the auspices of Jerry Rawlings and the Socialist-thievery elites in 1979 and 1981/82. The brutalization included seizure of women’s goods and money, disrobing and flogging of women in public, and forcing women to open their inner legs – genitalia - for uncensored public viewing. These sadistic and misogynistic sideshows did not only occur at the Makola market, but also at the Kotokoraba market in Cape Coast, and at the Asafo/Kejetia market in Kumasi. Truth be told here and now: in 1979 and 1981/82 under the control of Rawlings and the AFRC, no Ghanaian, let alone disempowered women, had the audacious impudence to throw their urine on soldiers. Ask JJ how many times did women throw urine on soldiers? Was it one day or over two years? Let us assume for the sake of arguments in the binary range of possibilities that some women threw urine on soldiers once, not for two years. If this argument is plausible, why did the soldiers brutalized women for more than two years without any intervention by JJ? And why did an event in Makola spread to Kotokoraba (Cape Coast), and Asafo/Kejetia (Kumasi)? Certainly, women could not have thrown urine on soldiers for a period of two years that would, according Rawlings’ logic, warrant abuse of women for two years. Simply put, soldiers were deified, attained limitless power, and inspired terror and fear in all.
CHAPTER 3: RAWLINGS’ IMPLODING SEASONS OF ANOMY
“According to [Rawlings] the kalabule had so badly gripped the society. A soldier goes to the Makola market and is requesting for the price of a piece of cloth for his wife that he wants to buy, and he’s pleading and begging, out of disgust, the woman throws her urine at the soldier. Not once, not twice, three times we know of….why did she do what she did? She did it because people had grown so angry and were finding those of us in uniform so repugnant. In a situation like that, the poor solider - he only obeys orders - and yet, he is the one who ends up with the urine being thrown at him. At that moment, he would take that woman and wanna kill her” (Ghanaweb January 9, 2014).
“JJ Rawlings, has stated that he tolerated the public flogging of naked market women during the June 4, 1979 AFRC uprising because some of those women threw urine at his soldiers ... Mr. Rawlings, who was addressing students at the University of Ghana on Friday, said inasmuch as he was pained by the flogging of the women, he could not have stopped it because the market women were disrespectful towards the men in green uniform hence they incurred the wrath of the soldiers “ (Ghanaweb October 22, 2011).
CHAPTER 4: JJ RUNNING HIS COURSE
Truth be told to all
To all generations
Old, young, and unborn
The beguiled audience of JJ
The benighted generation
The killer in designer clothes
The saint of Ridge fire
JJ is running his course
JJ is running his curse
JJ is in a full circle
A wise man circling a full circle
Confessing to crimes
Like a vulture preening
Preening and cleaning its beak
Preening itself on a carcass
Cleaning up after a bloody feast
Confessing to failures
To moral bankruptcy
To political atrocities
To social arsons
Truth be told to all
To all generations
Old, young, and unborn
In 1979 no one dared
No Ghanaian dared
Dared throw urine at soldiers
Soldiers were gods
JJ was the cult-hero of death
No Ghanaian dared soldiers
Those rampaging soldiers
Eye-contact with them was death
Makola women dared not stir
Makola women dared not rebel
Makola women did not use urine as missiles
Makola women never threw urine at soldiers
Truth be told to all
To all generations
Old, young, and unborn
JJ knows it all
Brutalization of women
Of Makola women
Of Kotokoraba women
Of Asafo/Kejetia women
Brutalized, dehumanized, killed
Soldiers brutalizing all
Tearing off women’s clothes
Tearing off women’s underwear
Pouring water in women’s genitalia
Flogging women in the genitalia
Ah! Eyee Kanea Eyee Han
To wit: women’s legs are open
Open for all to see
Truth be told to all
To all generations
Old, young, and unborn
JJ is lying
Showy self-righteousness
Like a peacock in mud
Walking contradictions
The lying encyclopedia
With a preface of deception
With conclusions of duplicity
JJ’s braided mouth
That tells slippery lies
His dead mind
Damaged psyche
Wee damaged pysche
Watershed of lies
Lies well-cooked
Lies of a megalomaniac
Well-served to his audience
Beguiled audience
Bamboozled audience
Benighted audience
Truth be told to all
To all generations
Old, young, and unborn
JJ, the gods speak for all
For the voiceless
For the marginalized
For the benighted
For the disempowered
The gods have set you free
Free to destroy yourself
To crush your filthy legacy
JJ, the gods speak for all
For the voiceless
For the marginalized
For the benighted
For the disempowered
**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 [email protected]. My poems and essays on Ghanaweb and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in part for any academic or scholarly work without my written permission.