*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.
“A 50 million Euro loan facility has been secured by government for the Ghana Police Service to procure over 500 vehicles to enhance the work of service personnel. This was disclosed by Vice president John Dramani Mahama when he joined officers and men of the service at the annual Ghana Police Service West Africa Security Activities, WASSA, 2011 end of year party at the Police Headquarters in Accra” (Ghanaweb February 26, 2012).
Oh! Radioactive thieves
Pen-armed robbers
Take a loan of 50 million
Ah! Give away 50 million
Hmm! Ah! Free 50 million
To a crony
To a con artist
To Crook Woyome
The celebrated thief
The calibrated thief
Celebrated by his chiefs
Our archives of pain
Our wombs of pain
Like pregnant women
In painful living-death
In our hospitals
Death & deadly
Derelict hospitals
Decrepit hospitals
Decaying hospitals
Dilapidated hospitals
Our birthrights of corruption
Oh! Biographies of corruption
Our genealogies of corruption
Eh! Massa we dey meet paa
Ah! My Child we meet again
Eh! Massa now time hard
Ah! You no dey alone oh
Today tro tro be empty
Ah! People no get money
Oh! The police dey for road
Hmm! Police na so so bribes
Our national lunacy
Our deep lunacy
Herded by thieves
Educated thieves
Pen-armed robbers
Thieves of our hope
Thieves that kill hope
Massa see policeman shoes
Ha ha haa! Erosion get am
Massa that be wicked joke
The Police go improve now
Eh! Woyome dey for road
Police no like Woyome bribe
My child Mills take loan
Eh! Massa another loan
Hmm! Child yes loans
Another loan to buy cars
To clean Accra
To dig pit latrines
To buy chewing sticks
To drain Korle Lagoon
To buy Chinese chop sticks
To bring in foreign artisans
To buy foreign sand
Oh! This loan is a good one
This dey buys cars for police
Massa how much loan
Oh! 50 million Euros
We Ghanaians be funny paa
Foreign diplomats don laugh
Yes! Dey for laugh at us
And we for laugh at us too
Eh! Woyome get free 50 Million
Eh! We take loan of 50 million
Master, I go get down here
My Child! Another day
Oh! Our lost cause
Of celebrating thieves
Of lionizing crooks
Of reserving state burials
For pen-armed robbers
For killers of our dream
Ah! This painful circus
That lacerates our hearts
In the postcolony of fools
In a full circle circling fools
In a fool’s errand for fools
*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
