*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Ho, May 21, GNA - Professor Kofi Awoonor, Chairman of the Council of the State, on
Friday said demands for the development of the Volta Region were not parochial. He
said that "Volta Region's development is not in isolation of Ghana's development but
linked to the total development of Ghana." Professor Awoonor gave the explanation
when he explained the rationale and framework of a two-day stakeholders' forum on
the development of the Volta region in Ho, on the theme” (Ghanaweb May 21, 2010).

The World Bank of “tribal” politics
Nurtured by Prof. Kofi Awonoor
The myopic sage of June 4 Mayhem
Birthed in his sophomoric book on revolution
“The Ghana Revolution” (1984)
Chronicled in a fit of intellectual orgy
To disempowering Akans - Asantes
To celebrate the TIN-god of Rawlings
Framed in a cargo-cult of Socialism
And Awonoor is now foaming at the mouth
That the Volta Region needs DEVELOPMENT
The Volta of the World Bank politics
Where Trokosi is Queenship
Where all the touted brains
The home of the wizard of Oil politics
And they forgot about development
Masquerading as revolutionaries
Thieves in borrowed academic robes
Anarchists parading as socialists
Ewe Socialists who forgot about self-help
While Kwahus, Asantes
Akuapems, Agonas
Akyems, Denkyiras, Bonos
Built their towns
Even in the mayhem of June 4

Awonoor wanted Akans marginalized
JJ Rawlings gloried in Awonoorism
So the Ewe ideologues of AFRC/P-NDC
With their daggers drawn against Akans
Daggers drawn they forgot the Volta
Daggers drawn they forget self-help

Awonoor talks about building the Volta
The Volta, the cradle of the NDC
The Volta the kennel of who born dogs
Volta the center of June 4 politics
Whose best ideologues are Northerners
Marginalized Northerners
In the thirty years of hero-worship
Thirty years of tin-god-ing Rawlings
Thirty years of June 4 mayhem
And most of the victims were Akans
Siaw Tata
Safo Adu
Bonsu Brothers
KOWUS
B.B. Bismarck

Kofi Awonoor
The poor, penniless professor
Who grappled with Ewe oral poetry
Found a filthy kennel in JJ Rawlings
And Awonoor lost his head
When Liman came to power
Awonoor summoned the return of JJ
A revolution of socialist breadbasket
Socialists who have never read a Marx
Socialism of educated thieves
Awonoor the messenger of violence
The shallow revolutionary
The Trokosi-prophet of Ewe hegemony
The ideological craftsman
The ideologue of JJ’s fake revolution
He who sustained the revolution
That turned out to be devolution
Awonoor he who arrived with a sword
Insisted on marginalizing Akans
Instead of developing Ghana
Came up with “The Ghana Revolution”

Thirty years later
JJ Rawlings the Ewe tin god
The last of the predators
To ever rule Ghana
Did nothing for the Volta
JJ dried up the Volta
To build his personal wealth
To anchor his posh boats
Boats bought for him
To ferret out mosquitoes
On a Valentine’s Day
When fire was celebrated at Ridge
Boats bought for him
By his anonymous friends
Who have done all for him
Paid for his kids’ education
Paid for his fleet of cars
Paid for kerosene for his fire

And so the Keta Sea Defense Wall
Became a Trokosi-child’s toy
In the hands of the Ewe elite
Thanks to the NPP
The selfish Keta Sea has abated
Kofi Awonoor’s “Ghana Revolution”
Has found its real home
The great home in his Ewe backyard
Where development is Trokosi
Where Trokosi is Queenship
Awonoor’s reckless revolution
Is now at home in search of its cradle
Cradle and kennel of June 4 violence
Violence antipodal to development

*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