*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“President John Evans Atta Mills has confirmed his government is unable to
contribute troops to any ECOWAS mission to oust incumbent president of the Ivory
Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, should the regional body make do with its threat”
(Ghanaweb, January 7, 2011).

Hmm! The West, Africa’s siblings
Call theirs CIVIL WARS
The American Civil War
They call Africa’s TRIBAL WARS
The West call theirs REVOLUTIONS
The French Revolution
They call Africa’s RIOTS
The 1948 Riots; the Aba Riots

Ghana should not shed blood
Let the historical moment speak
Not a drop of blood
No Africanization of barbarism
The enduring media images
Of African savages
Of traumatic histories
The enduring depreciations
Cherished imperial narratives
Discredited anthropologies
Packaged by our delirious foes
Ghana should not shed blood
Not a drop of blood
Not for French neo/colonialism
Not for Western hegemony
Not for Western elated appetite
For Ivory Coast’s cocoa
Oil, timber, coffee, palm oil
Not for the UN, ECOWAS

Ah! Atta called Konongo Kaya
He who has outsmarted JJ
JJ the demonizing monk
Ah Atta the Castle Snail
President Atta Mills
Your moment of excellence
Your endearing rainfall
Eclipses your long drought
Heralding thriving petals
Of new blooming ideas
Of pan-Africanism
Of ecstatic Nkrumahism
Of Africanizing self
Of self-conscientization
Epochal political rainfall
Fertilizing a new season
Seasons of progress
Of regenerating new seeds
That we must not, not again
We won’t do their bidding
The biddings of the imperialists
Multinational companies
The French, UNO, USA

President Mills
Let your critics eat their crow
Crushing their tongues
Crushed in bitter truths
Ghana should not shed blood
Not for the French
Not for French colonialism
Not for French Connection
Not for American hegemony
Not for Western interests

Imperialist interests
Pivoted by the UN
Chaired by Ban Ki-Moon
The UN boss & South Korean
Tell him to invade North Korea
The worst trouble-spot
Ask Asian countries to do so
Ask the UN to occupy North Korea

The agitated imperialists
Multinational corporations
The French Connection
Their insatiable colonial appetite
Salivating for cocoa
For oil, timber

Africans can achieve it all
Stability on our own
The rule of law
Cultivated laws
Laws of habit
Call it democracy
Ghana is doing it
Benin is doing
Coming to our own
Recount the vote
America has done it
2000 Bush & Al Gore
So Ivorians can recount votes
That’s a democratic tradition
Governments evolve
Governments are not imposed

Ghana must protect Ivorians
Must wean Ivorian bloodshed
Let them recount the votes
That is THE Democracy
Espoused by the West
Bloodshed is Demo-Crazy
Gun-toting Demo-Crazy
Of Africans’ badge of honor
Of immemorial bloodsheds

*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