Okyenhene: Tweaa Galamsey is behind your Palace

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Okyenhene Amoatia Ofori Panin II says it’s about time Ghana owned itself, and stopped allowing foreigners to own and plunder the country’s natural resources for their countries. ‘We should own our country. We should own our mines. We should own our gold. We should own our oil,’ the Akyem Abuakwa paramount Chief and President of the Eastern regional house of Chiefs said on Tuesday when traditional leaders of the area met President John Mahama who is on a two-day visit there” (Ghanaweb March 26, 2014).

“After flying in a helicopter to ascertain for himself the extent of damage caused to the land and water bodies of Akyem-Abuakwa by activities of illegal miners, otherwise known as 'galamsayers', President John Dramani Mahama has tagged the area as the headquarters of illegal mining in the country” Ghanaweb, March 27, 2014

Nana Okyenhene has said it all
We must stop the predators
Stop foreigners from plundering us
Tweaa! Galamsey is behind his palace
Tweaa his deceitful declaration

Nana Okyenhene
Today
Your gold is charcoal
Your timbers are shrubs
Your Birim is a gutter of filth
Your forest is a desert

Galamsey in Kyebi
Nana Okyenhene
Abuakwa is under siege
Kyebi is under siege
Your palace is under siege

Foreigners are plundering you
Pillaging, polluting
Plundering – your word
Your lands
Your states
Your rivers
Your womb of gold
Akyem womb of gold
Foreigners
Chinese
Lebanese
Whites
Syrians
All galamsey tycoons
They are plundering
Plundering Kyebi
Plundering Birim

Oh! Okyenhene
Outside his palace
His resplendent palace
The palace of gold
There is galamsey
The Chinese are raping gold
Pouring filth into Okyeman’s womb

Galamsey is destroying all
Destroying farmlands
Destroying riverbeds
Destroying watersheds
Destroying burial sites
Destroying forests

Okyenhene is adorned in galamsey
Galamsey’s colors of gold
Fit for the Okyehene
For tolerating galamsey

Okyenhene has said it all
Protect your resources
Ah! Akyem is under siege
Galamsey
Of deforestation
Of pollution
Of soil erosion

Okyenhene is the royal cause
His silence is galamsey
His passivity is galamsey
His inaction is galamsey
His apathy is galamsey
His lethargy is galamsey

Galamsey has besieged Abuakwa
Besieged Birim
Badgered forest
Battered farmlands
Beleaguered burial sites

Our eternal chiefs/kings
Swaggering on myths
The deadwoods of culture
Pompous troubadours
Of erstwhile, static culture
Of sterile birthrights
Of deceitful declarations

*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]. 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.