By Lamin Fatty
Dear Adama, Abdoulie, Essa, Halifa, Mama and Ousainou,
My mother, Mariama Jaiteh, would like to get your written responses to the following. The choice of medium to respond is yours. I shall translate the contents of your responses to her in a manner she could understand.
1. Her biggest concern as a woman at her age is her access to health care services, health products and how to afford them. How do you plan to make healthcare both easily accessible and affordable to her and her family?
2. In addition to myself, she has two daughters and two other sons who have graduated from high school and university respectively. She is interested in knowing how you intend to create secured and good-paying jobs for these young people whom we fear could be potential candidates of death in the Mediterranean Sea whilst trying to reach any European country to escape grinding poverty in The Gambia?
3. My mother is investing money, time, energy and love on a semi-indoor vegetable garden to produce an assortment of high-quality vegetables. She would like to know how you plan to concretely provide a marketing channel to avoid wastage of perishable goods and loss of investment on her farming?
4. She said she has observed those close to power and those in power get rich overnight especially during the last five years. She said those accused of perpetrating murder, embezzlement and negligence of duty during the Yahya Jammeh’s era are still not called to account for those violations for five solid years whilst the victims and their relatives continued to cry for justice and help. In her words, “how would you make sure Gambians get justice and the help needed to heal and reconcile”? and
5. Finally, my mother would like to ask you all how you intend to make The Gambia self-sufficient in food production to make us independent of loans and credits which we continue to service with colossal interest payments, increasing our indebtedness which correspondingly means allocating almost half of our national budgets to loan repayments?
These are the five questions a concerned mother asked me to convey to you all. Please, respond in a timely manner.