NTOABOMA—Akans have a popular proverb: “Aboa bi beka wo a, na ofiri wo ntoma mu.” This statement literally translates: “For an insect to bite you, it must come up close, and it must certainly be already carefully lodged within your clothes.” Else it has very little chance. Few insects sting on the fly. Most need a good footing on the skin.
Over the years, many British School students, some with actual Cambridge Accents, have attempted to unravel the deeper meaning of the Akan proverb. Hence like ordinary linguists without any real footing in Twi, or any Fante for that matter, and pretending to admire African proverbs, they have proposed meanings such as this: “Your destroyer is right next to you. He is more knowledgeable about your vulnerability than anyone else.”
Which is fine. For a student of Twi or Akan Culture. But a real linguist, like one from Ntoaboma, who is descended from a long line of linguists, and who has spent actual years in a Shrine, mastering and perfecting the acts and symbols of the Wokodua Continuity Tradition, that kind-of-sort-of-straightforward implication of the Akan proverb lacks nuance. It lacks a punch. For the real linguist the Akan proverb: “Aboa bi beka wo a, na ofiri wo ntoma mu,” is more akin to another proverb: “He that is within is more powerful that he that is without.”
Over the last few centuries, the last proverb has gained more popularity with Jesus Worshippers much more than with Akan linguists. Nonetheless, what it implies remains simple: “You are the only gateway to your own demise. Without your consent, even the devil without is incapable of destroying you completely.”
In light of Nana Akufo-Addo’s dalliance with USAFRIKKKOM on Ghanaian soil the Akan proverb bellows even more nuance at noonday: Nana Akufo-Addo has sold Ghana’s sovereignty to the Yankkkees in return for 20 millions dollars with the harrowing belief that the Yankkkees are in fact here in Ghana to help Ghanaians “wallow in more Amerikkkan largess.” “Why not bring the party closer?” says Nana Akufo-Addo, according to reports from a camp where hallucinations and delusions reign supreme. In other words, why not bring the Yankkkees closer to the skin?
This lesson serves a double-entendre, obviously. The Yankkkees via Nana Akufo-Addo, now have a chance to lodge carefully atop the Ghanaian skin, including Nana’s, and are ever-more-ready to deliver a killer bite where necessary. Equally, Nana Akufo-Addo himself is also that insect, via the NPP, who managed against some odds, against some NPP odds, against some Ghanaian reservation, to carefully lodge himself within the clothes of Ghanaians by imploring us to vote him president of the republic. Or else! He has delivered the first bite. And boy is it poisonous!
Ghanaian reservation has once again risen against something even more sinister than Nana Akufo-Addo: The Yankkkee Armed Forces Military Base on Ghanaian soil. Will that reservation hold or will it wilt under the weight of a persistent violent Kingdom in search of loot, in much the same way that Ghanaian Will Power wilted under the devilish perseverance of Nana Akufo-Addo in his third trial-temptation of all Ghanaians? The devil persists. Ask Jesus and he will recount this trials and tribulation with one such devil in the Bible.
The devil persists. Shall we survive him again? Or else! Otherwise, it seems our inevitable demise is clear, and when it is finally delivered through that inglorious Yankkkee bite, it might bear with it the ultimate reminder, invariably: That Nana Akufo-Addo dangerous bite: that all-die-be-die–bite! That Kumepreko-bite! That kill-me-quick type, with all of its air-headed trappings of “wallowing in American largess.” Ghana is bitten.
However, let’s find some silver lining. For once! Alas, once bitten, twice shy. In Texas, there’s a saying: “You fool me once…. shame, shame on you. You fool me twice….well… you-can’t-get-fooled-again!”
Perhaps, after all, after this Nana Akufo-Addo bite, we may all wake up, smell the danger, and apply some caution in this race to the bottom. Who knows? Time will tell. But God help you my dear Ghanaians. God help you in the same way he delivered Jesus from those three temptations.
