John Mahama: Time to Appoint Akans

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema

“A former Minister for Employment and Social Welfare, Moses Asaga has been appointed the new Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA). Moses Asaga is currently the chairman of the technical committee of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC). He takes over from Alex Mould who has now been appointed the Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation - GNPC” (Ghanaweb September 26, 2013)

Apologists would say JJ did it
Apologists would say Kufour did
Apologists would say Mills did it
So Mahama must also do it
Mahama should appoint only Northerners
Ah! Northerners flying all over the place
Like the missing akomfem
Northerners left
Northerners right
Northerners front
Northerners back
No! Let us speak up
Speak up against “tribalism”
Speak truth to “tribalist” power
No more “tribal” apologists

“Tribalism”
“Tribalizing” our polity
Our untreated trauma
Our archives of pain
Our narratives of victimhood
Our memories of exclusion
Of falsehoods and obfuscations
Of seductive narratives of power
Of pimping apologists
Brimming with provincial hubris
Brandishing pathologies of hypocrisy
Guided by “tribalism” rather than nationalism
Guided by short-term gains
Ah! Immediate gratification
Ah! Putative hegemonic power
Preposterous “tribalistic” victory laps

President John Mahama
Foams about inclusion
Like Korle Lagoon frogs
Talks about inclusion
Sings about inclusion
Coughs about inclusion
Whines about inclusion
Like Korle Lagoon frogs
His inclusion has become exclusion
Like the vanishing akomfem
His inclusion
Is including only Northerners
Is excluding only Akans
Excluding Asantes especially

John Mahama is a tribalist
The tribalist bar none
Turns left
Turns right
Looks upfront
Looks backwards
He finds his Northerners
His Northerners are everywhere
Up and running
Running Ghana
Running after tractors
Running after akomfem
Running after dry-season tree planting
Ruining the North
With SADA
With tree-planting in dry season
With akomfem in flight
While Tamale
Bolga
Yendi
Salaga are in ruins

Apologists would say JJ did it
Apologists would say Kufour did
Apologists would say Mills did it
So Mahama must also do it
Mahama should appoint only Northerners
Ah! Northerners flying all over the place
Like the missing akomfem
Northerners left
Northerners right
Northerners front
Northerners back
No! Let us speak up
Speak up against “tribalism”
Speak truth to “tribalist” power
No more “tribal” apologists

**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 [email protected]. 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.