Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo

Is a Ghanaian politician. He is the current Member of Parliament for Wa Central constituency in the Wa Municipal District in the Upper West Region of Ghana. He entered the Parliament of Ghana in 2005 after winning a seat on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress in the Ghanaian parliamentary election in December 2004.

Pelpuo was appointed Minister for Youth and Sports by President John Atta Mills in September 2009 following the resignation of Muntaka Mohammed Mubarak who was also MP for Asawase.He served in this capacity until he was dropped in a cabinet reshuffle in January 2010.^[3] He was replaced by Ghana's first female Minister for Sports, Akua Dansua and appointed deputy Majority Leader in Parliament instead.

WHAT PETROS KUTAA TOLD ME:

By: Rashid Pelpuo

Where freedom matters,

Life matters

Petros Kutaa told me so

He said he saw the happy face of freedom

Spring from the heat of the times

In the tumultuous moments

When people were owned by others

Where rebels shot and were shot!

With freedom from the outsider

Africa stills swims in penury

And strings and drugs shy away

And babies die in hasty retreat

In seeing a troubled world

As mothers in labour crash to death

Petros told me that in the far east

He and others had their minds locked in dungeons;

With no voices of their own,

Kept mute, brute force regimes,

Wars waged by a military junta

With idle civilian leaders

Kept alive by hypertensive prescriptions

Who kept state purse in bloated tummies

Petros said it was hurting so badly

That his willy no longer nodded to those

Pleasures he knew so well at dawn

As the forces of darkness knocked at doors

To take a freedom fighter away into the dark

And it was how bad it was

Not to have freedom.

In days flown pass

Petros said he saw Kwami

Tearing the pillars of heavy storms

And lightening incendiaries

To touch the flames of freedom

To light the rest of Africa

Which were put off by wonton men

Who like hounds hunted down the diadem

And sold it to the winds

What Petros Kutaa told me is true

He said in the twilight years of freedom

Rose came back and he found greater pleasure

Knowing her in the coldness of dawn

And the kids came chanting hymns of hope that

They would be a better world tomorrow.

11^th May, 2011

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

By Rashid Pelpuo

To Maara, my daughter

Maara by your gentle and kind disposition

You’ll grow into great achievements

You’d be a queen in your own right

But be mindful that you have your freedom

Else your world will be narrowed by others

So insist on your freedom

It’s the natural course of life

Stand up and ask to be free

It’s the way to liberate your soul

Freedom is a gift from God untainted

And it’s the essence of our humanity

So when you go out into the world

Insist on your freedom to think

Liberate your thought and free your mind

Unwind the chains and go where you want

But stay within the boundaries of the law

It’s how to be free

End your freedom before you

Crush into another person’s vessel

But crush any vessel that stands

Between you and your freedom

It’s how to stay free

Stay free to be yourself

Be a person of choice

Know the society and avoid its abuse

Stay with its good moral conduct

And you’ll enjoy true freedom

That’s how to be free

Stand up for freedom

And fight for it if need be

Don’t be cowed down

By bullying men and women

Who don’t respect the law,

Oppose them to the hilt

And oppose any authority

That will set aside the law

To endanger the lives of others

Oppose them even if you’re not violated yourself

For freedom is lost if without due course

One person loses his or her freedom

No single fellow must be so big that

He or she will determine

How others live their lives

Outside the laws and norms of the land

So you’re right to oppose such persons

And don’t be shy about that.

Do oppose with clear conviction

That you’re doing a noble act

Maara do be urged

To learn the books of law and freedom

And use your knowledge to seek justice

This alone can liberate the weak and the poor

Knowledge is the light and power

That rules the world, so never stop learning

But don’t ask too many questions

About what justice is;

You might run into trouble defining it -

Just stay with the law and what it sees as fair and just

Don’t be afraid to oppose oppressive laws

Oppose them with patience civility

Oppose them using the law and society

Insist in doing right to all people

Persist in appeals against bad laws

That debase society and demean the people

It’s the logic of our social reconstruction idea

It’s a noble way to save society

But Maara do take note;

Freedom is not just to be free of oppression

It’s also to be free from want

Our people deserve decent lives

The resources they generate

Must free them from ignominious poverty

So fight against single fellows

Who use state resources for private gains

Fight against corrupt regimes relentlessly

And insist on the right use of public money for public good

It’s what we need to reverse this spiraling poverty

To relieve the people from the pangs of hunger and need

This I charge you as you traverse this lonely path

In this land of our birth

28^th April, 2012

NJINGUM of AFRICA

By Rashid Pelpuo

Njingum, an African

Sits at the other edge of the world

Briefing the winds of passing times

Disagreeing that African labour is fashioned

In the like of Atlas;

Dutifully obeying cursed instructions

Bears the heavens in his brave shoulder in eternity

And of Sisyphus, in vain labour,

Rolling a bolder up a hill

And in rebellious disorder it

Tumbles down to the foot

At the pleasure of the gods

Njingum plays against the times,

Contradicts the image curved out for him,

Challenges his world to death end,

Believes that the spirit behind Africa

Is wiser than the created

Plodders and hankering gods

Condemned in the unknown void

In the African forest

In lip cracking harmattan winds

Njingum gathers firewood

Among woods gutted by fires;

Of remains of trees who in life

Never saw a season without the pain

Of brute raw bush fires,

As panting rodents, escaping nowhere:

Lions in hot pursuit of game

Now in ignominious flight for dear life

In unchallenged discordance with nature

In this unlucky forest of Africa

Sisyphus means much more than a myth

It is order and a comforting arena

Of vain labour, applauded

And trapped in mind sets

And Njingum matches against that odd

In a spiritual self redemption

In this place, in the deep alcove of thought

Coming out of the cold

Ngingum finds space to repair his hopes

In new thinking of a lush new world of Africa

10^th May 2011, Midrand, South Africa

LAMENTS OF A PATRIOT

We fought through long journeys

Of hopes from the pains

Of adversities to keep our dreams;

We the patriots of the land

Sacrificing to liberate our people

We come to the cross roads

Lost in the labyrinthine

Of commerce and trade

Caught napping in a huge

Traffic of market forces

In deadly throes of bad economics

We stand listless, in pangs

Troubled that we send

Our people this far

Only to look back with

Tainted intellects,

Grounded in our misery,

Lost in the corridors

Of confused power play

With a lost conscience,

We hurt all these sorry souls

For a lost dream!

Yet we keep the dream;

Bargaining to recreate

Ourselves from the settled dust

Of forgotten glories

To take our place

In the heights of change and order

In this land of our birth

In this place, this motherland

March, 1999

LETTER FROM OVERSEAS

                                                                                                          15^th March 1998,

                                                                                                          Away from Home,

                                                                                                            Ruminating 

                                                                                                             Nostalgically

                                                                                                           Braving the times

Dear Jamani,

                        I got yours on the airwaves

                        It filtered through the air to me

                        Dryness was pronounced

                        The grasses were all dry and pale

                        And the silence was loud all over.

I noticed the painful laughter

On the faces of people

Trying to laugh off their disappointments

And Bambi was no longer impressive

With all his harrowing haranguing

Yes, you did mention it all

But I could not perceive it;

I could not see how easy it was

For people to fare so badly this time

Bambi could not look at the people

At least not in their eyes.

I noticed the guilt he suffered

At the few attempts he made

To explain off the vulgar parvenus

All over the realm of public life

Especially when the crying children

And their mothers beckon him.

He walked head down into time.

                                   Anyway here is better

                                   You wouldn’t believe it, but it is true.

                                   The grasses are still growing green,

                                   I see mowers each morning

                                   Complaining about the insistent pressure

                                   Put on them to level up defiant grasses.

                                   Here beauty and care count

                                   And compliance is broad and clean

                                   About the use of public property

                                   Which our people call

                                   Wau Neni or Elephant meat

                                   Which allows some moral room for looting.

Jamani, you’d come to understand

As the world moves round

And how those who can’t hold firm

To their places fall off

From the vessel of destiny.

                                   Yes, I do recognize the attempts

                                   Made by Bambi and the others

                                   At rationalizing it all and how

                                   They often come back each time

                                   Recounting more failures than successes

                                   Blaming it all on past misdeeds

But I really find it odd when you told me

All the lands in the cities

Are now filled with ramshackle kiosks

With gapping gutters and potholes in multiples

Now more defiant, now more comfortable

Now more friendly and now more determined to stay on

                                   And I see quite clearly how tricky it is

                                    To attempt to give voices to countless mute souls

                                   And making them see the light

                                   Where there appears to be non to see

                                    They turn against you in attempts to lynch you.

I also got your message Jamani,

Of the million false answers given

To the poor state of things, the perverse pain

And the taunting reality of our self-made poverty;

One of our few perfect home made commodity

That often will propagate our failings

With hard core hunger befriending the people

                                   Anyway, yours was quite interesting

                                   It sets me on urge

                                   To want to burn the ocean

                                   Especially where I notice quite painfully

                                   That no one seems to care

                                   About the people; all the people

                                   Trotting naked behind

                                   The glamorous and gleeful other people

                                    Looking for fresh air to breath

But Jamani,

Don’t forget this.

When next you write,

Please include information

About the new phenomenon

Which is the old, reborn and revived

Of coughing guns held by children;

Who they say still breast-feed,

Pushing their way deep into

The dark recesses of life

In this African soil

Don’t also forget, Jamani,

To keep on the race to better

The lives of our people

Even at the peril of the times

Do have confidence

The times are good to fly into times joy

Contact me via the air and the mystery keys dot com

They have been tamed several times over

To carry messages quite dutifully.

So do contact me Jamani

I’m into it with those other people

Watching this sore business of life and death.

Your other brother

SUNGTAA.