Sustain Mandela legacy: Deputy Speaker

(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

"We have a responsibility, each one of us citizens of this miracle nation, to sustain the legacy of Madiba. In each one of us he lives and as long as we live Madiba too shall live," she said on Friday.

The Deputy Speaker had been speaking at a special prayer service held at the OR Tambo Hall, Khayelitsha, for the former statesman who has spent more than a month in a critical condition in hospital.

In a statement on Thursday, the Presidency said that since his hospitalisation on 8 June, Mandela was now responding to treatment.

"We are encouraged that Madiba is responding to treatment and urge the public to continue providing support and showering him with love, which gives him and the family strength," said President Jacob Zuma earlier this week.

"We should, in everything that we do, spare a thought for Madiba's family who in his own words "suffered more" than he himself did," said Mfeketo.

The Deputy Speaker said that prison could not break Madiba's spirit and faith. "Neither has retirement, and now ill-health, reduced Madiba's irresistible presence among us. In his sick-bed Madiba continues to bring us together as a nation in reflection," she said.

Mfeketo's comments come as Nelson Mandela International Day approaches.

The month of July has become over the years known as Mandela Month, and July 18-Mandela's birthday-- has been internationally declared as Mandela Day.

On Mandela Day, people are called on to devote 67 minutes of their time to change the world for the better, in a small gesture of solidarity with humanity, and in a small step towards a continuous, global movement for good.