Houseboys in Jail & the Woyomes are Free to Loot

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema

“An Accra circuit court, presided over by Ms. Wilhemina Hammond, has sentenced a houseboy, Stephen Blankson, to six years in prison for unlawful entry and stealing. According to the facts of the case, the convict is a house boy staying with his master, the complainant in the case, at North Dome in Accra. On June 15, 2013 at about 6 am, the complainant and his family left the house for their store in Accra. Soon after they had left, the convict capitalized on their absence and broke into his master’s bedroom and stole two flat screen television sets, jewelry and wrist watches, as well as $200 and an unspecified amount of cedis” (Ghanaweb, September 13, 2013).

Bogus Judiciary
Partisan judges
Preachers of inequalities
With their rhetorical grenades
Grenades that unleash toxicity
Like Korle Lagoon mosquitoes
Whining with captivating eloquence
Lofty rhetoric of self-righteousness
Of theologies of inequalities
Classist judges
Classist pen-armed robbers
Who cuddle the WOYOMES
Who eat with the WOYOMES
Who drink with the WOYOMES
Who share the WOYOMES’ loot

Bogus Judiciary
Partisan judges
With malignant rage against
The lower class
Artisans
Drivers’ mates
Laborers
The unemployed
The uneducated

Bogus judges
Partisan judges
Who jail houseboys
Partisan judges
Drowning in colonial gowns
Pen-armed robbers
Pen-armed robbers called my Lord
My Lordship
Lord-shipping systemic inequalities
Lording for the WOYOMES
Locking up houseboys
Praying for the WOYOMES
Preying on houseboys
Preying on housegirls
Preying on the marginalized
Preying on the disempowered
Preying on the impoverished
Preying on the backwatered

Bogus judges
Partisan judges
These clowns in colonial gowns
With their deceitful declarations
With their vacuous speeches
The killers of the dream
The killers of equality
The killers are mummified
Mummified in colonial gowns
Patterned with classism
In the postcolony of Ghana
Big wo/men steal
They are free
Houseboys steal
They are jailed
Big wo/men rape
They are free
Laborers rape
They are jailed
Ah! This postcolony
Of systemic inequalities
Of systemic classism
Nurtured by our Lordships
The sages in colonial gowns
The killers of the dream
The killers of equality
Oh! These pompous troubadours of inequalities

**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. Her poems and essays on Ghanaweb and elsewhere must not be reproduced in full or in part for any academic or scholarly work without her written permission.
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