*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.
** 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 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
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 urine at soldiers. Simply put, soldiers were deified,
attained limitless power, and inspired terror and fear in all. There is not a single
extenuating factor that mitigates the dehumanization of Ghanaian females, and former
President Rawlings, who has a mother, a wife, and
daughters, must know better.
“The former President of Ghana, 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).
Eh! Massa we meet again
Oh! Boy, Ghana funny
Eh! Mills palms turned green
Oh! JJ dey at it again, my son
Eh! JJ dey burn another house
Oh! JJ defend beating of women
Eh! For where Castle plus Arkaah
Oh! Na dis one be Makola women
Eh! Who ask am about Makola
Oh! JJ be haunted by his past
Truth be told to all
To the new generation
The beguiled audience
In 1979 no one dared
No Ghanaian dared
Not even the thought
To throw urine at soldiers
Soldiers were gods
JJ was the cult-hero
No Ghanaian dared soldiers
Those rampaging soldiers
Eye-contact with them was death
Makola women dared not stir
Makola women dared not
Did not use urine as missiles
Never threw urine at soldiers
JJ knew it all
JJ says he knew it all
Brutalization of women
Of Makola women
Of Kotokoraba women
Of Asafo women
Brutalized, dehumanized
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 genitalia are open
Open for all to see
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
Watershed of lies
Lies well-cooked
Lies of a megalomaniac
Well-served to audience
Beguiled audience
Bamboozled audience
JJ is in a full circle
Running his course
A fool circling a circle
Confessing to crimes
Like a vulture preening
Preening itself on a carcass
Confessing to failures
To moral bankruptcy
To political atrocities
To social arsons
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
Of noisemaking in the head
Of foaming in the mouth
*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
