Lawyers Defending Lawless Judges, Not Plantain “Stealers”

*Akadu N. Mensema

** Our problems and challenges come from Pen-Armed Robbers or Educated Thieves who use their sadistic pens, state-procured official letterheads, borrowed bombastic Englishes, and their vampire signatures to rob, impoverish, and marginalize the Ghanaian masses! Pen-Armed Robbers steal from the public, get grand perks, including drivers, garden-boys, cooks, house-helps, and prostitutes; paid handsome pensions and end of service benefits; invited to chair church functions, etc.; and given state burials after making all of us poor. Sadly, hardworking farmers who are loyal to the state don’t get perks. Neither do they get pensions and end of “farming benefits.” Oh! Talk about Farmers Day! And it is far removed from any cocoa, plantain, cocoyam, etc. farm. Farmers unlike our Pen-Armed Robbers work until they die from physical exactions, soil exhaustion, and social combustion.

**I dedicate this to the poor female farmer who was given four years imprisonment for stealing four fingers of plantain to feed her four famished and emaciated kids. Juxtapose this case with the way that lawyers like Nkrabeah Effa Dartey are arguing in favor of the corrupt, thievery, and predatory judges who accept bribes to free armed robbers, rapists, murderers, etc. No wonder some of the accused JUDGES are freely flying around like 37 Hospital bats dropping excreta-bombs on Anas and his team of saviors, and the bamboozled benighted Ghanaian masses!

JUDGES

They receive machetes

And set free murderers wielding machetes

They receive bottles of pito/apio

And set free violent drunkards

They receive stolen goods/items

And set free armed robbers

They receive yams, plantain, cocoyam

And set free farm thieves

They receive bloodied female underwear

And set free rampaging rapists

They receive lands

And set free land predators

JUDGES

The people adorning neocolonial robes

In secondhand suits

In secondhand shoes

In secondhand ties

Mouthing I put to you

Mouthing some dead Latin

Wearing baskets of woolen crowns

JUDGES

Ah! They were our last gods of probity

They call themselves

The Lords

And we say yes my Lord

They have power over life and death

Sentencing all for wrong-doing

Sentencing the common thief

JUDGES

Sentenced her

The poor woman with four kids

The poor woman couldn’t read or write

The hungry mother with four famished kids

They sentenced her to four years in jail

They say she stole plantain to feed her four kids

JUDGES

Ah! The JUDGES are intelligent

They protect their own

The JUDGES

They use legalese

They quote the law

They apply the law

To defend corrupt JUDGES

To defend lawless JUDGES

The flock like vultures in flight

JUDGES

They say Anas entrapped the judges

But the JUDGES chased after Anas

But the JUDGES never went to the police

JUDGES pocketed the cash

JUDGES ate the yams

JUDGES danced with the goats

Ah! JUDGES chewed the goats

JUDGES slept with the prostitutes

JUDGES drank the pito/apio

JUDGES

Bur the JUDGES sent the plantain thief to jail

Brilliant JUDGES never argued in her favor

JUDGES never blamed the hungry stomach of the plantain thief

JUDGES never blamed the famished conditions of the four famished kids

They never said hunger and famish entrap the mother

They never argue the way they are arguing in favor of the JUDGES

JUDGES

The JUDGES saw the plantain thief as a thief

Plantain thief as the nation wrecker

The “stealer” in the parlance of Parliament

JUDGES

They receive machetes

And set free murderers wielding machetes

They receive bottles of pito/apio

And set free violent drunkards

They receive stolen goods/items

And set free armed robbers

They receive yams, plantain, cocoyam

And set free farm thieves

They receive bloodied female underwear

And set free rampaging rapists

They receive lands

And set free land predators

Submitted by Akadu N. Mensema October 13, 2015. Can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com