Noble Plantain-Thief Jailed 18 Months! Elitist Thieves are Free!

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

Juaso (Ash), March 22, GNA - A circuit court at Juaso, has sentenced a 25-year-old unemployed man to 18 months imprisonment in hard labour for stealing six bunches of plantain.

Elitist educated thieves are free

Sekyi-Hughes & co are free

Muntaka & co are free

Killers of the dream

Educated mercenaries

Armed robbers with pen

With infected signatures

With poisonous fingerprints

With toxic handshakes

Plantain thief jailed 18 months

Peanut thief jailed 36 months

Elitist educated thieves are free

Elitist sanctimoniousness

Threaded with legalese

Braided with inequalities

Colonial jurisprudence

Dressed in tailcoats

Arrowed with moral deceits

Grandiose probity posturing

Passing judgments of damnation

On noble plantain thieves

Lesser criminal elements

Six-finger plantain thief

Gracious, dignified thief

And eighteen months in jail

Ignoble thievery elite

Thieves of state wealth

Democratizing thievery

Ignoble, wicked thieves

Showered with flowers

Big-time elitist thieves

MPs, ministers of state

Bankers, bursars, accountants

Those who build mansions

Build mansions overnight

Build every sinful payday

Eighteen months

Six fingers of plantain

Eighteen months in jail

For the poor mmobrowa

For the impoverished

For the lower classes

For the marginalized

Six fingers of plantain

Eighteen months

For caressing plantain

Oh! The call of the stomach

Eighteen months

For cuddling plantain

Oh! The pangs of deprivation

Eighteen months

For touching plantain

Oh! Summoning life to the body

Eighteen months

For hugging plantain

Oh! A sense of wholeness

Ignoble thievery elite

Thieves of state wealth

Democratizing thievery

Showered with flowers

For stealing state money

For road-building

For education, healthcare

For housing, water

For our well-being

Killers of the dream

Educated mercenaries

With pens as weapons

Weapons of poverty

Deprivation

Impoverishment

Benightedness

Killers of the dream

Worshipful thieves

Educated thieves

Whose one day’s theft

Whose poisonous pen

Desecrated signatures

Build personal mansions

Hotels

Shopping malls

Petrol stations

Educated thieves

Killers of the dream

Sanctimonious thieves

Killers of the dream

Six fingers of plantain

Eighteen months in jail

Sanctimonious thieves

Ignoble thieves

Killers of the dream

Ignoble thieves

Free to enjoy their loot

Showered with flowers

In mansions of victory

Ignoble thieves

Our paralysis of hope

Our fonts of pessimism

Of our eternal misery

Ridiculed in blackness

Mummified in doom

*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