The NDC-NPP Woyomes: Pen-Armed Robbers

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) bankroller who was

doled out GH¢41,811,480.59 of state money in a dubious court settlement, told a

media briefing in Accra on Monday, that he won the huge amount squarely, because the

Kufuor administration ditched him after winning the contract to execute a job in

connection with the renovation of the two leading stadia in the country, and the

construction of an additional two. Instead, Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu,

Attorney-General and Minister of Justice at the time, entered into a hurriedly

arranged settlement with Woyome, and doled out nearly GH¢42 million of state money

to the NDC financier. In his judgment, Mr. Justice Amadu stated clearly that he

adopted the ‘terms of settlement as the consent judgment of the parties in this

suit.’” (The Chronicle December 14, 2011)

They are worse than armed-robbers

Educated elites of pen-robbers

Whose declarations are toxic

Whose pens are lethal weapons

They kill whole populations

They kill slowly and gently

They live free on their loot

Ah! Tarkwa Atta’s paradox

Courts under NDC have failed

Failed to trial & jail NPP thieves

Courts under NDC have succeeded

Succeeded in enriching NDC thieves

The Woyomes of NDC

The Woyomes of NPP

The twins of thievery

Time for the masses

Masses to rise up

Rise up against the thieves

Woyomes of NPP & NDC

Who don’t build

Who refuse to build

Paid for not building

Flawless thieves

Vultures posing as parrots

Parrots of integrity

Parrots of equity

Parrots of probity

Parrots of honesty

Pen-armed robbers

In the pay of the state

Independence and today

Betwixt

We have jostled

We have struggled

We have toiled

We have moved

Contouring hopelessness

Demarcating static “blackness”

Piloting prophesies of doom

Navigating waves of gloom

Parenting deceitful abloom

We have journeyed all

From sublime to ridiculous

Rivers that flow upstream

Today

Economic nomads

Foraging for survival

Aimlessly

Foraging for sanity

Fawning over thieves

Fawning over pen-robbers

The Woyomes

Who don’t build

Who refuse to build

Get paid for not building

Flawless thieves

Our NDC and NPP

Their alternative bloom

Like shriveled petals

Ah! Their cherished traditions

Of historic postcolonial theft

Their intersections of thievery

Of moments of impossibilities

The weight of the moment

Ah! The tilting precipice

Hmm! Easy substitution of hope

Oh! Oh! Our narrative marginality

Pen-armed robbers

Flawless thieves

Strategic thievery

Seismic thievery

Legislated thievery

Educated thieves

Agents of it all

Of dreams deferred

Tethering on a precipice

Of inexorable decline

Of federated chaos

Of fetishized anomies

Of braided anarchies

Ah! Our Ghana

Our masses who suffer

Ah! Our Ghana

The historical moment

Of deceitful declarations

Of discredited elites

Oh! Traumatized masses

Traumatized masses

Impoverished masses

Benighted masses

Debited with poverty

Debited with depreciations

Debited with sterile moments

*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