Sidia Jatta Asks What Age Got To Do With Serving People
By Landing Ceesay
Responding to claims that he is too old to serve again in the National Assembly, Honourable Sidia Jatta, member for Wuli West quizzed what one’s age has to do with his desire to serve his people when he can.
“My Mission here is incomplete, I am aware some are saying that he is old and yes, I am old. But what has age got to do with knowledge? What has age to do with determination? What has age to do with the desire to serve your people when you can? And when you have the ability, you have the capacity, you have the will and the intention.
“What is wrong with it? What is age in the face of the struggle to rediscover yourself? If you are still able-bodied, intellectually mentally alert; what is wrong with wanting to serve your people? My life has been simply that. Age has nothing to do with the desire to serve your people when you can,” Honourable Jatta said in his remarks at the last session of the Fifth Legislature on Monday.
The veteran parliamentarian said since his primary school days to date, he has been in the mood to serve his people and that is what he is going to die doing.
Talking about the power of the people they are representing at the National Assembly, Honourable Jatta said the electorates should be the ones to decide what serves their best interest and otherwise.
“For fifty-something years, we have been here. Are we really commuting that we are helping our people to become a people? Are we helping our people by virtue of what we are doing here to make our people sovereign people? Not because we are saying they are sovereign but they come to the conscious realization that they are sovereign people, that they own this country, that they are the people who matter, who make decisions, who should decide what serves their interest and what does not serve their interests. That is the job we should have been doing as their representatives. That’s why we are their representatives,” he said.
Honourable Sidia Jatta, served four 5-year terms in parliament as a representative of the people of Wuli West in the Upper River Region (URR), making him one of the longest-serving parliamentarians in The Gambia.
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