I am the traveller on this historic time and land, bubbling with enthusiasm of meeting one of the great Pan-Africanists
—a vision that was probably buried before it was birth—
hoping to draw fresh inspiration in human vanity, for I would not be P.B. Shelley to despair our rulers’ collective futility,
as they assume transcendental essence in search of vain glory,
taking titles as the Saviour of our races and tribes…
And, over there, on that same similar stretch of empty land, stands a headless vast Nkrumah, cast in bronze to endure,
but he has lost many things, for he could not bear the attack of the invading hopeless and empty vandals, who chopped off a portion of his leg by irrational force,
and hacked off one of the Saviour, Osagyefo’s hands…
And on the pedestal where the severed head is mounted, appear these words:
“The bronze head of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s original Statue which stood in front of the old parliament house, Accra, vandalized during the February 24, 1966 Military and Police Coup D’etat …”
I take note as one of the Preacher’s Students
as I remember ‘Ozymandias, King of Kings’
I look back at the works of Nkrumah, and despair like the Preacher!
What really remain is our colossal wreck of history of nothingness, this contradiction of the present success of failures,
plaguing this vast land called Africa,
standing, here and there, in high places of leadership like Osagyefo’s vast trunk of bronze, headless, yet trying to recite P.B. Selley’s Poem,
‘My name is’ not, and cannot be ‘Ozymandias’
even though I share his history …
why don’t you just look upon me as a mere headless SAVIOUR…?
© ‘Bode Ojoniyi, October 24, 2017
University of Ghana, Legon, Accra.
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