*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

John Mahama
Sleek like a savannah snake
Like a pito-ed womanizer
Talks, talks, talks
Promises accountability
Chirps, chirps like an akomfem
Nurses akomfem that flies to Burkina Faso
The SADA tree-planter in the dry season
Promises anti-corruption
But Woyome is in our midst
Regaled by Ewe chiefs as their saintly son
Free to travel abroad like a vulture
Free to attend NDC events
Predatoring as leach NDC financer
Woyome’s accomplices are enjoying their loot
Barton-Oduro flies as our vulture
Barton-Oduro represents Ghana in Guinea Bissau
Our vulture represents our vulturing culture
We worship the vultures who prey on us

Ghana’s pen-armed robbers
The killers of the dream
Vultures of the postcolony
Soaring in pen-armed robbery
Worse than the white predators
Worse than the white imperialists
Vultures of the postcolony
That soar in disgrace
The pen-armed robbers
The killers of the dream
The watershed of it all
Of all our problems
Of decrepit electricity
Of poisoned water
Of polluted environment
Of dilapidated hospitals
Of benighted schools

Bloody vultures
In the postcolony
Vultures of the postcolony
Worse than white imperialists
Vultures in flight
Soaring higher in theft
Scouting downwards
Beaks daggers-drawn
Claws deadly-poised
Preying on debts
Praying for debts
Judgment-debts
Praying for 10 percent
Vultures in flight
Looking for prey
In judgment debts
Preying on citizens
Praying for judgment
Pen-armed robbers
They prey on the state
They prey on citizens
Ah! Judgment debts
They prey on it all
Praying for 10 percent
Preying on judgment debts

Pen-armed robbers
Vultures of the postcolony
They prey on the state
They prey on state lands
They prey on state cars
They prey on state hotels
They prey on state factories
They prey on state tractors
They prey on state bungalows

The educated elites
The new imperialists
In the garb of woolen suits
Primeval tie to their throats
Our politicians
Our leaders
Our judges
Our chiefs/kings
Killers of the dream

Freedom will come
One day it will come
We shall arise
To reclaim dignity
The liberation of old
The theology of Tigare
The ontology of Akonedi
True true decolonization
It will rise like the wind
The wind that never stops

John Mahama
Sleek like a savannah snake
Like a pito-ed womanizer
Talks, talks, talks
Promises accountability
Chirps, chirps like an akomfem
Nurses akomfem that flies to Burkina Faso
The SADA tree-planter in the dry season
Promises anti-corruption
But Woyome is in our midst
Regaled by Ewe chiefs as their saintly son
Free to travel abroad like a vulture
Free to attend NDC events
Predatoring as leach NDC financer
Woyome’s accomplices are enjoying their loot
Barton-Oduro flies as our vulture
Barton-Oduro represents Ghana in Guinea Bissau
Our vulture represents our vulturing culture
We worship the vultures who prey on us

*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 All 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.