Makola “Urine” & Atrocities: JJ is Lying to All

*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