*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema

**Dedicated to the thousands of impoverished and exploited “Northerner” street kids in Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi, Accra, Koforidua, etc., who have become socio-economic orphans in the corrosive quicksand of SADA Akonfem Economics.

Tweaa Mahama
Where is the Turkey-bound gold?
The vultures in our midst
The educated elites
The pen-armed robbers
The mosquitoes
Blood vampires
Educated vultures in flight
Soaring over carcasses of gold
Of cocoa
Of oil
Of timber
Of diamond
Of bauxite
We have them all
We pour them in wreckages
In deep-sewage political pockets
As usual Ghanaians made a lot of noise about the 1.5 tons of gold from Ghana that was strangely bound for Turkey, but was seized when it arrived at the Dubai airport. Ghanaians should remember that Mahama quietly rushed to Turkey stating that he was there for business when he had not formed his team D cabinet. No leader in this world would rush to Turkey to micromanage trade arrangement when s/he had no cabinet in place. In fact, this was something that the Ghanaian embassy in Turkey could have handled on behalf of the government. Mahama returned to Ghana and his spokespeople denied the story about the 1.5 tons of gold. The BNI denied it. The Civil Aviation and the Kotoka International Airport officials stated that they had no records of the plane leaving Ghana. The Minerals Commission also denied it. In his bid to confuse the public, Mahama set up a Commission of Enquiry to investigate the gold in flight like a SADA akomfem. As public pressure mounted, the government came up with a surrogate culprit who is in now jail and who has being paid, according to my reliable sources, to take the blame for Mahama. Considering Mahama’s avalanche of dubious financial dealings, no wonder that his arrival in the Middle East led to the release of the plane carrying the gold. Now that someone has taken the golden bullet for Mahama, the question still remains this: “Tweaa Mahama, where is the Turkey-bound gold?

Ghanafo, I repeat
Where is our gold
Tweaa Mahama
Where is Ghana’s gold
The strange gold bound for Dubai, Turkey
Where is our gold strangled in the Mid-East
In your huge batakari pockets of deceit
Ghanafo, I repeat
Our silence is our undoing
Our “fama Nyame” is our undoing
Our “make you no mind am” is our undoing
Ghanafo
How did a plane-load of gold leave Ghana
Who were involved in the process
Where is the gold
Who has the gold
How is the gold
Gold torn from Ghana’s navel

Ghanafo
Our perennial problem
Our short memories
We talk, talk, talk
We forget it all in two weeks
Missing in flight like SADA akonfem
So the pen-armed robbers rob us
So they kill us
So they dehumanize us
So they impoverish us
Oh! This our short memory
This national deficit
This democratization of corruption
Oh! The killers of the dream
Killers who prey on our short memories
Our watersheds of corruption, mediocrity and all

The vultures in our midst
Preening their bloody feathers
Soaring with grace
Gallant in flight
Unclench their wings
In silent winds of depredation
Ah! They soar over unearned carcass
Of a postcolony killed by greed
Killed by poverty
Killed by illiteracy
Killed by “Fama Nyame” syndrome
The vultures are soaring
Their bloody beaks
Their bloody talons
Bloody thieves and killers of the dream
The fact of the matter is that we heard nothing from the NDC government regarding the 1.5 tons of gold. None of the pen-armed-robber politicians and stomach-driven journalists asked questions about the gold. Our useless MPs who have mansions, but have been given $50, 000 for housing, while millions of street kids live on urban streets, did not ask any question. The toothless grinning members of the Council of State who have been given car loans of $50, 000 each said nothing. The rotting chiefs who are waiting for Schnapps and ginseng beer from Chinese galamsey miners in exchange for unrestricted land rights remained silent. The neocolonized prophets, pastors, priests, and diviners who think that God and Jesus are white men, and who look forward to tithes from their unwary followers never sang a hymn about the gold. The disempowered and benighted masses could not pause beyond their mantra of the usual unworkable “enye hwee,” “fama Nyame,” “make you no mind them,” even as they suffer as foot-soldiers soldiering for poverty.
Fellow Ghanaians, we have lost courage to speak truth to power. And where is Rawlings who has terrorized us with his probity and accountability. Then again Rawlings has perfected the art of selective memory. We need to ask questions as citizens who love our nation. The fact of the matter is irrespective of whether one belongs to the NDC, NPP, or DDT, and whether one is Akan, Ewe, Northerner, etc., everyone has to sit up and make our government and leaders accountable and transparent.
The vultures in our midst
Soaring with grace
Gallant in flight
Unclench their wings
Of silent violence
Ah! They feed on unearned carcasses
Of a postcolony killed by greed
Killed by poverty, illiteracy
The vultures
They are worse than the colonialists
They are worse than the predatory slave traders
We have lost the ability to dream
Reality in our midst is nostalgic lunacy

Fellow Ghanaians, our recklessness, passivity, thievery, and democratization of corruption have become our everyday toxic oxygen that we freely enjoy. In Ghana today, there is a cargo-cult mentality nourished by neocolonialism and disempowerment, illiteracy and benightedness, dependency and elitist entitlements, and an incipient democratic tradition that surrogates power for ethnic groups. We must always speak truth to power! For my part, I owe allegiance to Ghana, to the voiceless, to the marginalized, to the benighted, and the thousands of street children in Ghana.

POSTSCRIPT:
Tweaa Mahama
Where is the Turkey-bound gold?
Our silence is our undoing
Where is the gold
What became of the gold
Who has the gold

**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.