Watchman President in Preying Seeks “god” in Israel

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, PhD

“President John Dramani Mahama has told the pastors selected for the

government-facilitated pilgrimage to Israel that government is ready to abandon the

trip if the pastors decline the offer. Speaking on the issue for the first time,

President Mahama said ‘Unfortunately the whole intent has been misunderstood and it

has created some negatives. The circumstances under which various church groups are

writing and saying we don’t want to participate; we will take what you want if we

should abandon it, we will just tell the private sponsors that unfortunate the

church groups are not interested’” (Ghanaweb, March 19, 2013).

The custodian is carelessly care-taking

Watchman in a preying pose

Praying for preying

Preying on the Ghanaian carcass

The Ghanaian living dead

The watchman

Watching around like an owl

Ah! The saintly watchman

The pope of corruption

The reckless womanizer

Is still groping

Groping

Searching for his god

Not in Gonja

Not in Ghana

Ah! In Israel

His god has deserted Ghana

Sinful Ghana

Corrupt Ghana

Cruel Ghana

His god is lurking in Israel

The watchman pays for prayers

Praying for the prey of Ghana

In Israel

Praying for hospitals of death-traps

Praying for days and nights of dumso

Praying for water of drought

Praying for schools under baobab trees

Praying for generations of street kids

Praying for roads of death-traps

Praying for tribalizing politics

Praying for pen-armed robbers

Praying for neocolonized people

Praying for the benighted masses

The watchman

Is watching

In the darkness

In the land of living dead

The watchman president

He is watching all of us

He is watching out for all of us

He is watching on our behalf

The benighted masses

The impoverished masses

The marginalized masses

The watchman is watching

The watchman president

Soars over dead Ghanaians

Like a vulture

Soars over carcasses

Silent, soundless, still

The Ghanaian dead

The Watchman soars

Crests over dead Ghanaians

In the night

In our benightedness

In our dumso dumso darkness

In our darkness of corruption

In our drought-ing indignities

In our seasons of darkness

The watchman

Soars over Ghana

Crests across Ghana

The land of darkness

The land of the living dead

Ghana is under the watchman

Watching the home

The home of benighted masses

The home of uneducated masses

The home of impoverished masses

The home of marginalized masses

The home of neocolonized masses

Ghana

Ghana the home without a god

Ah! This archive of pain

Ah! This postcolony of thieves

Ah! This den of pen-armed robbers

Ah! This province in mental shackles

Of inferiority

Of neocolonialism

Of Westernizing

They seek a god overseas

Their god has deserted Ghana

This godless terrain

Steered by pen-armed robbers

Sainted by bibled-armed robbers

This postcolony of vivacious poverty

Of inventiveness

Of thoughtfulness

Of normalcy

Of progress

Of moral compass

Of nativizing

Of transparency

Of activism

The watchman’s god is gone

His god has deserted Ghana

His god that will bring light

His god that will bring water

Ah! This godless place called Ghana

*Akadu Ntiriwa 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. My poems and essays on

Ghanaweb and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in part for any academic or

scholarly work without my written permission.