Kpegah’s Time to be “Shoe-Shiner:” Build a House

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, PhD

“Retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Francis Kpegah, has fired back at his critics

who have raised issues with his continuous stay in a government property several

years after retirement. This followed calls for him to vacate the five-bedroom

bungalow located at number 15, 5th Avenue, Edward Nasser, Ridge in Accra” (Ghanaweb

March 22, 2013).

The Kpegahs

The Sekyi-Hughes

They fleece the masses

The poor masses

These arrogant educated elites

Pen-armed robbers

The local imperialists

Predators in suit

Fleas feeding on the masses

They fleece the masses

Of Asante shoe-shine boys

The marginalized

The mocked

Who manage to put up houses

Of benighted Zongo tenants

Of impoverished cocoa farmers

Of drought-haired street kids

The Kpegahs fleece them all

Francis Kpegah

The decrepit-ing judge

The frantic-ing judge

In the NDC’s trappings

Of propaganda

Of demonizing

Of mediocrity

Of divisiveness

In our postcolony

Of quotidian struggles

Of archives of mediocrity

Of enduring celebration of thieves

The Kpegahs

The Sekyi-Hughes

The vultures

That never built nests

That soar above and beyond all

The bloody-beaked vultures

Look down

There

There

Hard-working shoe-shine boys

Hard-working street kids

Derided

Disparaged

Disdained

By the Kofi Awonoors

Ah! Shoe-Shine boys

They build palaces

They own palaces

Kpegah owns it all

His pride of place is tribalism

Kpegah owns his tribal supremacy

That is his asset even in old age

Francis Kpegah

Kpegah can learn from them

Asante shoe-shine boys

The derided

The disdained

The disparaged

Those hated by Awonoor

They are Asante Shoe-Shine boys

Who sweat to build their own homes

Kpegah must learn from them

Kpegah may be too old

Too old in tribalizing

Too old in peddling idiocy

Too old in being used by NDC

Too old in his anti-Akanism

Too old in his anti-Akufo-Addo-ism

Too old to learn a new trade

The art of self-help

The art of independence

The Kpegahs

The Sekyi-Hughes

The preying vultures

That hope to build tomorrow

That soar with homeless pride

It is their pride of place

To feed on the masses

Seasoned preying predators

Kpegah

The supremacist

The tribalist flea that fleeces the poor

Ah! Kpegah never built a hut

Never built a hut

Not in Alavanyo

Not in Accra

Kpegah

The tribal supremacist

The aging bigot

Forgot to build a nest

Like the bats of 37 Hospital

Hang in trees

Bottom up

Face down

To the world

*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 akadumensema@yahoo.com 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.