*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, PhD

**Submitted on January 17, 2013

“President John Dramani Mahama has filed his response to a petition by three
personalities of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) challenging his election as President
in the December 7, 2012 presidential election and indicated his intention to call
4,800 witnesses to state his case” (Ghanaweb January 14, 2013).

4,800 witnesses
Truth needs no witness
Truth prevails on truth only
Truth prevails on only truth
Truth promotes truth to prevail
Truth needs no witness
Not even one witness
Mahama has 4,800 witnesses

4,800 witnesses
Alive and well
In our lively decay
Life of the lifeless
4,800 witnesses
Alive and lifeless
The political vermin in our midst
Like the vulture on a preying pose
4,800 witnesses
Mahama have them all
4,800 witnesses, great witnesses
Mahama have them all
The female bats of 37 Hospital
The female mosquitoes of Korle Bu
The female cockroaches of Effia Nkwanta
The female houseflies of Okomfo Anokye
The female maggots of Ho Hospital
The female wasps of Tamale Hospital
The female termites of Tetteh Quarshie
The female weevils of Sunyani Hospital
They are coming
4,800 witnesses
Mahama have had them all

4,800 witnesses
Garlanded with truth
Bedecked with truth
Decorated with truth
Ornamented with truth
Bejeweled with truth
Adorned with truth
They are coming
4,800 witnesses
Oh! WREATHED in truth

4,800 witnesses
The pride of our politics
4,800 witnesses
Pregnant with enthusiasm
Mahama bought them all
With computers
With television sets
With cell phones
With pieces of cloth
With fifty Ghana cedi notes
With used fridges
With cars
With Schnapps
With food
With cooking oil
With promises to irrigate the whole Ghana

4,800 witnesses
Our politics of deceit
Killers of the dream
These pen-armed robbers
Who kill us with ink
Who kill us with signatures
Who kill us on paper
4,800 witnesses
Alive and well
In our lively decay
4,800 witnesses
Alive and well
In our lively decay
Life of the lifeless

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