*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, PhD
“President John Dramani Mahama has told the pastors selected for the
government-facilitated pilgrimage to Israel that government is ready to abandon the
trip if the pastors decline the offer. Speaking on the issue for the first time,
President Mahama said ‘Unfortunately the whole intent has been misunderstood and it
has created some negatives. The circumstances under which various church groups are
writing and saying we don’t want to participate; we will take what you want if we
should abandon it, we will just tell the private sponsors that unfortunate the
church groups are not interested’” (Ghanaweb, March 19, 2013).
The custodian is carelessly care-taking
Watchman in a preying pose
Praying for preying
Preying on the Ghanaian carcass
The Ghanaian living dead
The watchman
Watching around like an owl
Ah! The saintly watchman
The pope of corruption
The reckless womanizer
Is still groping
Groping
Searching for his god
Not in Gonja
Not in Ghana
Ah! In Israel
His god has deserted Ghana
Sinful Ghana
Corrupt Ghana
Cruel Ghana
His god is lurking in Israel
The watchman pays for prayers
Praying for the prey of Ghana
In Israel
Praying for hospitals of death-traps
Praying for days and nights of dumso
Praying for water of drought
Praying for schools under baobab trees
Praying for generations of street kids
Praying for roads of death-traps
Praying for tribalizing politics
Praying for pen-armed robbers
Praying for neocolonized people
Praying for the benighted masses
The watchman
Is watching
In the darkness
In the land of living dead
The watchman president
He is watching all of us
He is watching out for all of us
He is watching on our behalf
The benighted masses
The impoverished masses
The marginalized masses
The watchman is watching
The watchman president
Soars over dead Ghanaians
Like a vulture
Soars over carcasses
Silent, soundless, still
The Ghanaian dead
The Watchman soars
Crests over dead Ghanaians
In the night
In our benightedness
In our dumso dumso darkness
In our darkness of corruption
In our drought-ing indignities
In our seasons of darkness
The watchman
Soars over Ghana
Crests across Ghana
The land of darkness
The land of the living dead
Ghana is under the watchman
Watching the home
The home of benighted masses
The home of uneducated masses
The home of impoverished masses
The home of marginalized masses
The home of neocolonized masses
Ghana
Ghana the home without a god
Ah! This archive of pain
Ah! This postcolony of thieves
Ah! This den of pen-armed robbers
Ah! This province in mental shackles
Of inferiority
Of neocolonialism
Of Westernizing
They seek a god overseas
Their god has deserted Ghana
This godless terrain
Steered by pen-armed robbers
Sainted by bibled-armed robbers
This postcolony of vivacious poverty
Of inventiveness
Of thoughtfulness
Of normalcy
Of progress
Of moral compass
Of nativizing
Of transparency
Of activism
The watchman’s god is gone
His god has deserted Ghana
His god that will bring light
His god that will bring water
Ah! This godless place called Ghana
*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.