SEPTEMBER 4 — The current culmination of anger leashed out by the Sabahans against the incompetence and inability by the BN Government in governing the State had came to a boiling point that the national BN leaders have finally resorted in threatening the Sabahans with sedition act.
If one analyze the situation logically, it will be clear that these culmination of angers would not be there if the BN government had done the tasks entrusted upon them by the Sabahans in the first place, instead of fighting to ensure its political survival remained intact!
And due to these incompetence and failure by the BN Government to bring forth the daily lamentations made by the Sabahans to the national level effectively and fought for it, this had somewhat created great a division between Sabah and the Federation of Malaysia.
This is evidenced when we speak about the existence of 800,000 illegal immigrants/Project IC holders in the State and the imbalance development/mistreatment of Sabah; a nation which was indeed independent before agreeing to form the Federation of Malaysia.
So, if the BN government had done its job for the past 20 years, Sabahans would be very satisfied with Sabah's position within the Federation of Malaysia and there would be no complaints at all from the Sabahans!
Even the opposition would not be able to wrestle several seats from BN as evidenced in the previous GE13.
What we Sabahan wants from the federal government is plain and simple.
We want Sabah to be recognised as an equal partner within the Federation in whereby, when determining the future of his nation called Malaysia, our opinions, requests and voices must be adhered to since Sabah is one of the 'three shareholders'.
For example, did the federal government taken into the consideration the call by the Sabahans for equal distribution of Parliamentary seats between Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah over the seats previously allotted for Singapore?
And whenever Sabahans spoke of any issue such as the oil royalty review or Borneosation, the BN Government would be quick to hide behind its usual cover line of 'we don't bring issues in the open; we discuss about it during our meeting'.
Any minister or representative must discuss his/her party's issues during their party's meeting BUT there is no reason for them not to educate and inform the Sabah's younger generation openly of what is rightful belongs to our State !
Even the RCI report on the existence of the illegal immigrants in Sabah is not forthcoming when Sabahans are eagerly waiting for it despite the fact that Sabahans are the ones who paid the costs for the hearing through the peoples' funds known as taxpayers money.
Thus, the culminating resentments and angers felt by the Sabahans towards the nonchalant attitude by the BN government over all these issues have somewhat come to a point that ordinary and non-partisan Sabahans decided to take things at their own hands by educating and spreading the awareness relating to Sabah such as the Birth of Malaysia, the 20 Points and Sabah's special rights and privileges which were imbued in the Malaysian Agreement 1963.
And several politicians (including myself), activists, scholars, academicians and non-partisans have taken part in several forums to share our thoughts, opinions and so on relating to these pertinent issues that some of these forums have unbelievably been regarded as 'seditious' in nature by some quarters.
Why is it seditious in nature to speak and discuss about the special rights and privileges held by Sabah which have been acknowledged by the signatories to the Malaysian Agreement 1963 in the first place or even the mistreatment felt by the Sabahans all these while?
I believe that even some of the members of the BN government may also support our call for a more autonomous and respected Sabah but due to pressure upon them (for reasons known only to them) or even the threat of causing seditious remarks, they may have unfortunately unable to realize the wishes of Sabahans
In the case of Tan Sri Simon Sipaun, a Pro BN NGO had made a police report against him when the former had only shared his experience as a junior civil servant during the British administration and not in any way belittle any of the previous effort by those who fought for the independence of Sabah.
While there has been many insensitive comments made in the past by several BN state leaders, this act of making the police report is a show of arrogance beyond comprehension shown by an NGO that I myself could not believe is happening in this State.
Why would anyone make a police report against a retired civil servant (who had given his entire life for Sabah) who merely made a comparison relating to the governance between the past and present administration?
I myself do not believe in secession as I believe that prosperity and security within the scope of an autonomous and equal governance of Sabah in the Federation as envisaged during the formation of Malaysia is what Sabahans really want and this vision was equally felt and shared by some of our previous State leaders.
I stand by Tan Sri Simon Sipaun and whatever effort by the BN government to intimidate or suppress the determination and spirit of the ordinary Sabahans to ensure that the special rights and privileges held by Sabah will fail.
Just attend to the demands that Sabahans wanted.
*Darell Leiking is a member of Parliament for Penampang.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
