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PART 1: SHALLOW PROFS Professor banza eh! Yes Sir/Madam, I know my ABCD! Yes Sir/Madam, I have my ABCD! But Prof. Banza can you soar above EFGH? Our emerging half-baked professors Wearing bogus titles of professorship Strutting as giants of mushroom academies Titles plucked from the eaves of the academy Titles unwarranted by a dearth of scholarship Titles unwarranted by a dearth of teaching Titles unwarranted by a dearth of service The killers of the dream And of the realities of knowledge They are Korle Lagoon mosquitoes Hostile mosquitoes in our ears Professing noise as knowledge � Banza Professors eh! Who have nothing to profess about Who can’t ask new questions But have affinity with decaying ideas Who can’t do fruitful research Who have not published in any reputable journal Who have not presented conference papers Who don’t know how to face students Who may have self-published 20 pamphlets Pamphlets they alone understand Hollow professors Who pluck titles from the eaves of the academy � Banza Professors eh! They are among the THIEVES of our time Who can’t read their own names But are able to craft schemes to steal from the state Who can’t read their own Ph. D. dissertations But can craft ideas to steal from the state And who are all over the airwaves Mounting tempestuous political platforms Like rabid dogs in heat They are like Korle Lagoon mosquitoes Hostile mosquitoes in our ears Professing noise as knowledge � PART 2: ROLL CALL: LUMINARY PROFS Before our academic sunset We had cultivated well-deserved professorship Professors who studied the horizon And minted kaleidoscopic knowledge Professor George Benneh Professor Francis Agbodeka Professor A. Adu Boahen Professor Kwame Arhin Professor Ama Atta Aidoo Professor A.A. Kwapong Professor K. Wiredu Professor G.K. Nukunya Professor Christine Oppong Professor F.K. A. Allotey These and numerous others Who published peer-reviewed articles Who published celebrated magnum opus Who published timeless books Who gained global distinction Known by their first names around the globe They were the intellectuals before our sunset They made Ghanaians proud They are the signposts to knowledge They are road-maps to progress But they are not Korle Lagoon mosquitoes That breed in filthy academies The hollow intellectuals The shallow intellectuals Those who shout the loudest Those who spit the crudest Even when their tongues are trapped By their decaying uncut intellectual teeth They are like Korle Lagoon mosquitoes Hostile mosquitoes in our ears Professing noise as knowledge Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema 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]