Ekomini-Komfo Mills Fulfils JJ's ADZE WO FIE OYE Prophecy (1)

Ekomini-Komfo Mills Fulfils JJ’s ADZE WO FIE OYE Prophecy (1)

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.





“The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, is fuming with rage over tribal politics… warning the ill-fate trend could jeopardize Ghana's peace… Calling for the immediate end to tribal politics, he disclosed that some public workers, notably Asantes, are being laid off from their work places without genuine reasons in the national capital of Accra” (Ghanaweb, February 1, 2010).





I. PREFACING “TRIBAL” POLITICS


Ghanaians shouldn’t mumble behind pillows


This time we are not curfew-ed at 6 PM


We should speak up now


Speak blunt truth to unhinged power


The sway of “tribal” politics


Politics of exclusion


Its nepotistic brokerage of resources


Its damage to the national psyche


Pathways of ethnic violence


Horn-blowers must be summoned


Atentenben, Asafo, Mpintsin


Akyenekese, Kwaadwom


Akyeame, Wulommo


To resonate dirges to our nation


To inter our politics of exclusion


And to sprout inclusion for all


Truth be told and like it or not

Nkrumah sired inclusion


Busia projected it


Acheampong, Akufo


Liman


All sustained the project of inclusion


Kufour cottage-industried exclusion


But didn’t make it an exclusionary tool


JJ has patented exclusionism


As an instrument of policy


Excluding all except his people





II. NANA ASANTEHENE MO NE KASA


Nana Asantehene


Nana Osei Tutu II mo ne kasa


Speak truth to supremacist power


But do so when it is about the NPP


When it is the NDC


Even when it is our cherished eternal DDT


Our political parties that poison us


Our Parliamentarians that stunt our roots


Our Council of State with its aging toxins


DDT that suffocates us


The Council of State

Silent-addled


Sheltered by Kofi Awoonor Nyedevu


Of the “tribal” revolution


Coward Ghanaians


Whose solitudes of quietude


Crucible of FAMA NYAME


Feed on parasitic “tribal” politics


Our guarded civility


Is incivility of our sanguinary despotism





III. JJ’S DIVISIVE POLITRICKS


And JJ held the crowd in Tamale, Bolga


Pointed to Salaga slave market


Told them Asantes had enslaved them


And will continue to enslave them


That the NPP is an Asante Party





At Sunyani, Berekum


Fuming JJ stoked the embers


Of Asante hegemony over Bonos





In Koforidua JJ subtly coaxing


Reminded teeming Dwabens

Of their escape from Asante





In Ho, Keta, it was all about Akans


Akans have salted Keta “school-boys”


And made it tastier on Ewe tongues





In Teshie, Labadi JJ reminded Gas


That Akans have bought Ga lands


Akans sold Ga lands to themselves





In Akuapem Larteh, Adukrom


JJ questioned Akan domination of Guans


Said Kufour’s road ended at Mamfe


That Kufour forgot Larteh, Adukrom





IV. FRUITION OF ADZE WO FIE OYE


At Cape Coast, Saltpond JJ cajoled Fantes


The prophesy of “tribalism” came to pass


The most powerful of the “tribal” coaxing


ADZE WO FIE OYE was hatched


Centering seismic “tribal” imbalance


Of Ewe domination however defined

V. MILLS’ TESTIMONY


Mills bore testimony to JJ’s prophecy


Of Kufour’s fishing industry in Kumasi


That Asantes don’t go to sea


They don’t fish and don’t eat fish


Mills is the interpreter of the prophecy


But the holding shrine of the prophecy


Is not in the Slave Castle


Mills is well asleep


A bumbling hero of JJ’s prophecy


Okomfo Mills is too possessed to care


In the dungeons of the Slave Castle


Lethargic, fumbling around


Looking for a way to the Jubilee House


Freedom


But Colonial Ridge


Is wedged between


The Slave Castle and Jubilee House


Colonial Ridge is the signpost of “tribalism”


And the center of our 30-year traumatic history





*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