Ekomini-Komfo Mills Fulfils JJ’s ADZE WO FIE OYE Prophecy (1)



*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.



“The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, is fuming with rage over tribal politics… warning the ill-fate trend could jeopardize Ghana's peace… Calling for the immediate end to tribal politics, he disclosed that some public workers, notably Asantes, are being laid off from their work places without genuine reasons in the national capital of Accra” (Ghanaweb, February 1, 2010).



I. PREFACING “TRIBAL” POLITICS

Ghanaians shouldn’t mumble behind pillows

This time we are not curfew-ed at 6 PM

We should speak up now

Speak blunt truth to unhinged power

The sway of “tribal” politics

Politics of exclusion

Its nepotistic brokerage of resources

Its damage to the national psyche

Pathways of ethnic violence

Horn-blowers must be summoned

Atentenben, Asafo, Mpintsin

Akyenekese, Kwaadwom

Akyeame, Wulommo

To resonate dirges to our nation

To inter our politics of exclusion

And to sprout inclusion for all

Truth be told and like it or not

Nkrumah sired inclusion

Busia projected it

Acheampong, Akufo

Liman

All sustained the project of inclusion

Kufour cottage-industried exclusion

But didn’t make it an exclusionary tool

JJ has patented exclusionism

As an instrument of policy

Excluding all except his people



II. NANA ASANTEHENE MO NE KASA

Nana Asantehene

Nana Osei Tutu II mo ne kasa

Speak truth to supremacist power

But do so when it is about the NPP

When it is the NDC

Even when it is our cherished eternal DDT

Our political parties that poison us

Our Parliamentarians that stunt our roots

Our Council of State with its aging toxins

DDT that suffocates us

The Council of State

Silent-addled

Sheltered by Kofi Awoonor Nyedevu

Of the “tribal” revolution

Coward Ghanaians

Whose solitudes of quietude

Crucible of FAMA NYAME

Feed on parasitic “tribal” politics

Our guarded civility

Is incivility of our sanguinary despotism



III. JJ’S DIVISIVE POLITRICKS

And JJ held the crowd in Tamale, Bolga

Pointed to Salaga slave market

Told them Asantes had enslaved them

And will continue to enslave them

That the NPP is an Asante Party



At Sunyani, Berekum

Fuming JJ stoked the embers

Of Asante hegemony over Bonos



In Koforidua JJ subtly coaxing

Reminded teeming Dwabens

Of their escape from Asante



In Ho, Keta, it was all about Akans

Akans have salted Keta “school-boys”

And made it tastier on Ewe tongues



In Teshie, Labadi JJ reminded Gas

That Akans have bought Ga lands

Akans sold Ga lands to themselves



In Akuapem Larteh, Adukrom

JJ questioned Akan domination of Guans

Said Kufour’s road ended at Mamfe

That Kufour forgot Larteh, Adukrom



IV. FRUITION OF ADZE WO FIE OYE

At Cape Coast, Saltpond JJ cajoled Fantes

The prophesy of “tribalism” came to pass

The most powerful of the “tribal” coaxing

ADZE WO FIE OYE was hatched

Centering seismic “tribal” imbalance

Of Ewe domination however defined



V. MILLS’ TESTIMONY

Mills bore testimony to JJ’s prophecy

Of Kufour’s fishing industry in Kumasi

That Asantes don’t go to sea

They don’t fish and don’t eat fish

Mills is the interpreter of the prophecy

But the holding shrine of the prophecy

Is not in the Slave Castle

Mills is well asleep

A bumbling hero of JJ’s prophecy

Okomfo Mills is too possessed to care

In the dungeons of the Slave Castle

Lethargic, fumbling around

Looking for a way to the Jubilee House

Freedom

But Colonial Ridge

Is wedged between

The Slave Castle and Jubilee House

Colonial Ridge is the signpost of “tribalism”

And the center of our 30-year traumatic history



*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