The Mpianis & Brobbeys: Biographies of Educated Bandits:

*By Akadu N. Mensema Ph. D.; Post-Grad. Dipl.

The “NDC government will exercise the option of prosecuting the Chairman

of the Ghana@50 Planning Committee, Mr Kwadwo Mpiani and the Chief

Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana@50 Secretariat, Dr Charles

Wereko-Brobby (Ghanaweb Jan 4, 2010)”

I. LEPERS WITH THIEVERY HANDS

Educated elite gangsters

Ghanaian banditry elites

Academic mercenaries

21st century Tarzans

In a paradise of noble thieves

And silent ignoble worshippers

Crooks among us

Political lepers among us

The untouchable Mpianis

The untouchable Ahwois

Untouchable Ft. Lt. Indemnity

Untouchable Hotel-4-K4

Leprous leaders who fail Hope

II. KILLERS OF OUR DREAMS

Ghanaian banditry elites

Educated gangsters

The killers of the dream

Those who abort our hopes

Whose only fame is thievery

That defrauds the only workers

The exploited cocoa farmers

The only genuine workers

In our mother Ghana raped

By burglars who wield pens

Pickpockets with state pockets

Muggers who use state offices

Assailants who use signatures

Thugs in parliamentary suits

Educated elites who never work

But only steal from state coffers

III. A TIME OF HEALING

Let us summon all the bandits

The political lepers among us

And we already know them

We eat from their leprous hands

We use their sputum as sugar

We revere their thievery

We happily breathe their air

Their political flatulence

But in this hour of healing

If the evidence on theft is solid

Let us prosecute them

Let us imprison them

The thievery untouchables

Lepers with golden fingers

Let us pave Nsawam

With golden barbed wires

For they love to have gold

IV. THE WORST CRIMINALS

Ghanaian banditry elites

Let them share kinship

With small-time criminals

Those who stole chicken feet

At the Nkrumah Circle

To heal their hunger

To pacify their anger

BUT Remanded for life

Serving life imprisonments

While the BIG thieves

The Rawlingses

The Kufours

The Kwadwo Mpianis

The Wereko-Brobbeys

The Ahwois

The Sipa Yankeys

The Kwamena Bartels

The PV Obengs

The Tsikatas

The Albin Bagbins

Seasoned criminals

The educated thieves

Are REVERED

Live among us

The killers of the dream

Thieves who wield pens

Armed robbers in suits

Who rape Ghana

Of its young females

Of its abundant wealth

Of its ontological dignity

Of its bright future

Of its rich cultures

Yet are revered

And worshipped

And live among us

And enjoy their loot

At our impoverished expense

Bankrupting our way of life

Corrupting our worldviews

We worship big-time thieves

Adore their long biographies

Of thievery

Of moral decay

And detest small-time thieves

Who are imprisoned for life

Who are on remand for life

Cowards who worship thieves

And yet need healing

From traumatic histories

Inflicted by ecstatic thieves

In the land of our sorrows

*Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema 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