BATTERED, BITTER BUT UNBEATEN

-Osagyefo’s Children Cry

In Ghana’s heart lies Africa’s fountain of hope,

Yet as a nation she stands in her direst of days,

Economic woes cast shadows deep,

Yet hope persists, though troubles clasp her,

Nearly ridding her of breath.

Once and still rich in gold, in cocoa, and so many more

Now struggles haunt, a bitter brew, an embittered people.

Inflation soars, the cedi falls, the youth with no jobs

Frustration echoes through market stalls and within all walls.

Yet in the eyes of those who toil, resilience gleams,

Steadfast and with boiling rage, bent on a better future.

From dusty rural roads to bustling towns and to gleaming cities

Hope’s ember burns, knowing no bounds, that unfailing elixir

In Accra’s heat, in Kumasi’s throng and in a Sirigu made languid

The people’s spirit sings its song, amid sighs and between heaves.

Through hardship’s grip, they stand forlorn, with just enough strength to think each about themselves

Their journey long, their battle far from won.

With hands outstretched, they seek a way,

To mend the fabric, come what may.

For Ghana’s story, though tempest-tossed,

Resides in hearts unbowed.

So let us weave a tapestry bright,

Of dreams renewed, of futures right.

For in Ghana’s soil, in her skies so wide,

In her people, in her veins, reside enough

More than is required, to make us bold

And to stand us erect, in pride and independence

We have fed so long on hope,

Now for meal we want fair chance

To live in dignity,

And when the time comes,

To die in dignity

@Siriguboy

POWER, THE DEVIL’S BREW?

It wasn’t too long ago that President Macky Sall was cited as the shining star of democracy in our region.

That he has finally revealed his essential nature, for it is said that power doesn’t change, it only reveals persons, and has exhibited his desire to cling to power, has finally answered a nagging question that has long troubled me.

I remember, sadly, also, that jnr Kabila once postponed elections in the DRC on account of no money to procure logistics and to organise elections. But time caught up on him. And he used the Anglophone formula.

Then and recently, I have had to wonder whether power is so intoxicating that once one gets a sip, one gets so hooked on its flavour that one loses common sense and most crucially, morality, the little of which finds its way into that quagmire .

And those two are not alone in their appetites, Monsieur Ouatarra, next door, is not exempt, it seems.

But don’t be fooled, the Anglophones have their game too, they rig elections in favour of their preferred candidate, sometimes their protégé, sometimes their buddy.

Essentially, power, a la African, which vests vast power in the hands of the executive and with no real effective controls has proved to be a sweet and maddening potion, that once tasted, holds hostage all principles and considerations.

Just thinking

@Siriguboy

!!

29th February 24 @ Costa de Oro

 UNO

Convenient principles

Without scruples

Yet at full blast our bugles

DOS

Woke to my brother’s arm ripped

While many a head was dipped,

Not in sorrow but from heads and hearts hollow

Steeping in misery their and our tomorrow

 TRES

We have journeyed so long

But to antiquity we still belong

We might as well, in the market square, beat the gong

And extract, oil up and set ready the guillotine

For there is where we are, in a billabong

Of civilization.

 QUATRO

With flowing gowns and ill-fitting crowns

Brandishing the crucifix and the crescent

Preaching brimstone and fire, Armageddon come

But with innards teeming with maggots

Folly, hypocrisy and cowardice galore.

 THE END

Now for sure our doom requires, to divine, no dice

@Siriguboy@24

I SHALL NOT EVER BE SEDUCED

Power makes of too many a man a beast

Many a holder it maddens,

And their hearts it deadens

Their senses, it threatens

Their humanity it flattens

It is the worst prey to hunt, for all mores are dispensable in her quest

It is the worst object to seek, for it blinds one to even the most obvious

It is the worst addiction for it sees one to their end

Power makes you high

And it makes you lie

Its hunter will surely cry

And him it haunts till he die

Power keeps you hungry

Even when in plenty

It makes you angry

And fills with envy

All who seek her like crazy

I have kept her an arm and a half’s lengths away

I have pinched myself when into her glare I have strayed

And on more occasions than I care to count, I have gone, to be spared her, on my knees to pray

@Siriguboy

REPEATING THE THOUGHTS OF MY AUTONOMOUS MIND

Do we ever learn?
Every day another thing takes its turn
And we place all else in an urn
One day is how long our rage can burn

Yesterday, indignation was fever pitch
Cos the cops, in the way of Messrs Demo and Cracy, threw a hitch
Assertion threw away all caution and undid on the muted mouths every stitch
Everyone cried out, the impoverished and even the rich

But one night’s dose of slumber douses the fire
And our Father alone remains umpire
We all placing our today’s fill before our children’s desire
This routine we will abide until law or nature our spirits retire

Why do i have this affliction
known but despised, a conscience?
Wondering whether at all there still is gumption
Or just a mere response to our stomach or loins sensation

In a single file we march, delirious,
to our end, not distant, rather nigh!

@Siriguboy…

HOW DO WE MEASURE?

I do not know for certain how many educated people, if any, existed in my hometown when the rumblings of independence started but I know that my grandfather and his unlettered peers did not deem that an excuse for remaining in servitude.

I am not sure how many degree holders Ghana could boast of on the dawn of 6th March 1957 but that surely did not diminish the confidence of that generation in their ability to run their own affairs.

I have no idea how many learned folks were on the roll in 1844 but the chiefs knew that panyarring was outdated, even unjust and so saw fit to proscribe it.

I cannot say for sure that many Africans knew what democracy was, if they had heard of it at all but the concept of a consensus to co-exist in mutual respect was surely not far-fetched for them.

Audi alteram partem though couched in Latin did not begin in the Roman Empire, our forefathers knew and practiced it.

When my grandmother’s father asked her which suitor she fancied, he was not succumbing to feminism, he was exhibiting his respect for and love of his daughter.

Today, we have laws and sanctions and prosecutions and sentences yet we treat ourselves horribly.

Today we are allegedly more sophisticated yet we view and treat each other worse than animals do themselves.

Today, we have fuller knowledge of the fanciful arrangements of democracy yet we flout its core principles with reckless abandon.

There are more ritual murders today than when I was a sapling, all because we have bought into the primitive persuasions of macabre ritual practices purportedly capable of making us filthy rich with no work, just in exchange for human parts.

Degrees are a dime a dozen yet many walk with empty cocoons for heads.

We are farther away from survival of the fittest yet we treat community with disdain.

How do we measure with our forebears?

Sadly, badly!

Let no one dare tell me we are modern for we show little sign of it

Let no soul come blabbering that we are more educated for surely we are not showing it. You want proof. We are killing the planet with our recklessness when our unschooled ancestors treated her with solemn care.

We have come far but we do no better than those who had no benefit of our journey.

We must wake up, just wake up, from our conceited slumber and admit our abject stupidity and mimic, if we can’t learn, from our fathers and mothers past.

@Siriguboy.

TEN NIGHTS, TEN MORNS and TEN DAYS

Howling winds laden with dust

But return home I must

And squint on my way home each dusk

Days spent recovering memories

The head, the brain our diaries

Of times past with no worries

I took that stroll on the now lonely meadow

Bereft of life, even the sparrow

Once trodden by legs carrying heads not caring for what lay below

I saw the shriveled trees

From which birds flew free

As though on a freedom spree

I saw the parched river bed

Which carried waters always clear, not red.

Sodden now with the blood of many dead.

Ten nights I spent wondering whither my people are headed.

Mauling and maiming the pastime of the young and hotheaded.

Our souls as if deadened

Our hearts too hardened

Our future burdened

Ten mornings I woke to beads of sweat

From frenzied nightmares that alone I was dealt

I woke to hope that my people will hear the peace and harmony bell

Ten days I met sorrow in every set of eyes

And people walked like men wrought of frozen ice

And women hoping their luck will improve with the next throw of dice

A people once filled with laughter

Now beginning to be known only for slaughter

No one is spared, not even the daughter

How I wish I could my limb for peace batter.

Ten nights

Ten morns

Ten days

And still no light in sight!

@Siriguboy

UNDER SIEGE, WE MORTALS

It began as a shiver

Then a full blown cold

Some aches

And then lethargy

Normally it would not mean much if at all a thing

But it had a name, a banal name

Then the scientists came out with novel nomenclature.

Twas blamed on Wuhan

And their curious cuisine

They protested

Then relented

Or did they?

A brave soul or a traitor had come earlier to the town square

His squawking went unheeded

Until he paid the ultimate price

Then it went wild

Flying with kings and queens

In vessels up above the skies

From land to another

From human to another

All colours

Black, white and brown

And all the colours in between.

Frenzy, shock, bewilderment, mortal fear

Pervaded the land

Indeed the globe

Prophecies came tumbling from the lips of doomsayers

Skeptics cried foul with a cheeky cackle

Some laboured to fight it

While others beckoned it come, almost

Then the potion arrived

And with it a sigh of relief

Then the dithering

And the legalese

The Rights Company
The Liberties Regiment

And the incurable conspiracists

But in its while some complied

And we begat

The lull

Followed by

The recklessness

And then

The amnesia

AND NOW

OMNICRON

@SIRIGUBOY

JOGOBIABAM, CHAGENA YOOO!

I call Navrongo home, for i grew up there, first in the St John Bosco’s College of Education and later in Balobia, a small suburb.

I went to Our Lady of Lourde’s Practice School, later rechristened Monsignor Abatey Memorial School, but that was after my cohort had gone on to Secondary school.

I did a stint at the Notre Dame Minor Seminary  Secondary School but had to leave on ‘compulsory transfer’and later taught very briefly in Navrongo Secondary School.

I was among the pioneers of the Ghana Vitamin A Supplementation Trial (now Navrongo Health Research Center). As part of my duties in Ghana VAST, i was engaged, along with others, in the mapping of the district and thereby got to know nearly all of it. The district then, included  what is now Kassena_Nankana West District.

I call many people in Navrongo, family, through blood and sheer familiarity and without need for permission, i call myself a ‘jogobu’, (a true son of the area)

I speak kassem as well as i speak my mother tongue, ‘ninkaare’, a variant of ‘gurune’,also, albeit erroneously, called Frafra. Of the fifty plus years i have lived, the majority of them i have spent calling Navrongo home and it is my plan to retire, resources permitting, to Navrongo.

This extensive sojourn in Navrongo has afforded me an uncommon knowledge of the town and its people and if i am ever compelled to use one word to describe them, i will use a hyphenated word, ‘independent-minded’.

This praiseworthy character of the people of Navrongo is evident in every facet of their lives. For example they received and hosted the first missionaries even though their town was not the first choice, i stand to be corrected.

They embraced formal education first and thus came to provide the bulk of the earliest educated people.

They immersed themselves in the Independence struggle, represented by R.L. Abavana and others, and thereby got their name widely known and respected across the country.

They have, more recently, gained the reputation of changing their member of Parliament, almost every  election cycle,to the admiration of some and the chagrin of others.

It is a few hours to the NPP Primaries  and the Navrongo contest has gained much prominence and for very many reasons. Notable among them is the weight of the two contestants, both Ministers of State. Then there is the issue of the novelty of  a woman presenting herself as candidate. Both personalities and their respective teams have campaigned vigorously and it is now the job of the delegates to cast their votes tomorrow. That should be a simple assignment, it is what may follow that worries me.

This election is , for me, a challenge more for the people than for the candidates. I say so because the results will definitely go in favour of just one candidate and the other candidate and  their supporters will have to concede, and that requires considerable magnanimity and i pray said magnanimity is not in short supply.

We must remember that both candidates are true Navania, with family and friends in all sections of the constituency, by marriage and by association. They both have good intentions for the constituency, or so they profess and for that reason one cannot logically dislike one or the other. The matter at stake is to decide who will pit themselves against STC for the ultimate ‘opportunity to serve’. Period.

Let the best win and let us remember, especially in defeat, not to imperil the peace of Great Navrongo.

@SIRIGUBOY