*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.
Accra, April 28, GNA - Vice President John Dramani Mahama has given the assurance
that both he and the President would move into the Jubilee House as soon as
arrangements were complete (Ghanaweb, April 28, 2010).
Our Golden Jubilee House
Our Presidential Palace
The House that JJ couldn’t burn
JJ’s “fire” couldn’t burn it
Golden Jubilee House
Anchored in Flagstaff House
Nkrumah’s eternal home
Golden Jubilee House
One of our best projects
Oh! Kufour did it
Our postcolonial coming of age
After Akosombo Dam
After Tema industrial city
After Job 600
After Bank of Ghana
After Supreme Court
After 1000s of school
After 100s of health centers
Oh Kwame Nkrumah
The sage & visionary
The Father of infrastructure
Our Golden Jubilee House
Our Palace
Oh! Kufour’s handiwork
Jubilee House
The NDC called it all
A poultry farm
A useless project
A toilet house
A “corrupt” project
The NDC protested
Screamed, shouted
It was their poultry farm
The majestic house
That Rawlings never built
Couldn’t built
In 20 years of rule
The house JJ couldn’t “fire”
Couldn’t burn down
Jubilee never burnt down
So Mills can have it now
Atta Mills is free now
Set free by JJ Rawlings
Fire-man who burns all
He who burns houses
But keep cars, dogs
But couldn’t burn Jubilee
Atta Mills is free
Set free and free as air
And Ghana is free
Free from ATLANTIC slavery
Free from mental slavery
In a slave castle of gloom
From the castle of doom
Where our forebears died
Where freedom died
Where tyranny was born
Atta Mills is free now
Atta Mills is free to move
Set free by JJ Rawlings
Set free and free as air
And Ghana is free
Free from JJ’s horrors
The Castle of suffering
Broken-bottle-hair cuts
Cement-gari parties
Organized beatings
Blade-addled scarifications
Humiliations in nakedness
The Castle
Where coward Ghanaians
Allowed JJ to flourish
Where elitist socialist thrived
Stole money
Praised JJ as they stole
The thievery elites
Stole in a sordid place
Where Arkaah’s soul died
Where Arkaah was ganged upon
Ganged upon by who born dogs
Atta Mills is free now
Atta Mills is free to move
Set free by JJ Rawlings
Set free and free as air
Set free to praise Kufour
The architect of Jubilee House
The house that wouldn’t burn
Burn from JJ’s divisiveness
Ghana is free
Free from slavery
Free from mental slavery
Free from old hurts
Disappointments
Benightedness
Ghana is free
Free from the Castle
Dungeons of blood
Of Mental enslavement
Golden Jubilee the House
That JJ couldn’t burn
So Mills will use Jubilee
A metaphor of our politics
Politics of divisiveness
*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
