*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).
VI. ADZE WO FIE PROPHECY
At Cape Coast, Saltpond
JJ laughed and cajoled Fantes
The prophesy of “tribalism” came to pass
ADZE PA WO FIE OYE was hatched
No more NPP Asante hegemony
And the Fantes cheered on
Their new white man in disguise
JJ’s
Affected accent, aquiline nose
Fair complexion
Fante broni not of Kotokoraba stock
Of Abom Wells Road stock
Fantes misunderstood JJ
So they did with the British imperialists
The British who fought Asantes
With the help of Fantes
The British left Asantes alone
But planted colonial rule in Fante
The Fante elite drank their tea and smiled
And called colonialism partnership
Of paternalism
ADZE was for the Volta to over-flood
And so JJ the bearer of new partnership
Swayed Fantes before the flood
Of ADZE WO FIE OYE
Atta Mills the son of Oson is ADZE
Fantes returned to their ancestral home
At Nanompow
The Sacred Grove at Mankessim
Of Oburumankoma,Odapagyan, Oson
There Fantes waxed lyrical
Flaunting Mills the ADZE bouquet
Flowering of JJ’s prophecy
To eclipse the new Asante hegemony
VII. OKOMFO MILLS FULFILLS JJ’S PROPHECY
Ekomini-Okomfo Mills
Took over JJ’s shrine
Came stumbling
Mumbled the diviner’s narratives
Mouth-twitching
Okomfo Mills was re-possessed
Afraid of JJ’s prophecy
Then the prophecy came to pass
ADZE WO FIE OYE
The dazzling ADZE
Has gone the way of the Volta
Yes, it was JJ’s prophecy
He spoke for the Volta
ADZE is Mills the son of Oson
And WO FIE OYE is the Volta
VIII. JJ’S PAST ADZE WO FIE OYE
JJ’s ADZE
Had manifested in other ways
Planted long ago
And harvested with blood
Along the tunnels of sociopath-ing
Slaughter of judges of Akan stock
Demise of Akan firms/company
Of Appiah Menka’s soap industry
Dr. Safo Adu’s pharmaceuticals
Kwabena Darko’s poultry farm
Siaw’s Tata Brewery
Kowus Motors
Kufour Transport
Bonsu Store near Opera Cinema
Kwahu-traders section of Makola
And so it came to pass
ADZE WO FIE OYE
Is just the final tunnel of deceit
In Awonoor’s Ewe revolution
Flooding the Volta all over Ghana
Atta son of Fante Oson is drowning
IX. ADZE BY-PASSED FANTES
ADZE has come to pass
The prophecy is being fulfilled
Misery has besieged Mankessim
Where Oburumankoma
Oson, Odapagyan
Worry about Atta Oson’s descendant
Atta pivoting seismic “tribal” imbalance
Of Volta’s encompassing floods
The holding shrine of the prophecy
Is not the Slave Castle
It is at Colonial Ridge
The center of our traumatic history
Mills is drowning in the Volta
Atta needs a bridge to cross the Volta
To cross to Mankessim
Where the children of Oburumankoma
Of Oson
Of Odapagyan
Are mummified in despair
But Atta son of Oson is not despaired
Atta is punching the Fante air in delight
Grinning at JJ’s absolutist prophecy
Of the ADZE and OFIE host-kinship
Of our parasitic kinship dependency
Of our reckless politics we call hope
*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
