Referring to the statement by Minister of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan that Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the one and only prime minister who has brought changes to Sabah, I am of the view that this is totally misleading.
Instead, the recent political scenario with the emergence of a two-party system (BN vs PR), especially in Peninsular, has forced the lame duck prime minister to bring changes to Sabah, in order to woo the support from the state which he described as BN “fixed deposit”.
UMNO leaders never perceived Sabah as a priority area in the past, as they enjoyed unchallenged power, with support in Peninsular enough to keep UMNO at the helm.
Sabah, in the far far east, is too remote a region that UMNO preferred to control through its proxies and stooges in the 1970s and 1980s until then opposition PBS came up to defeat these UMNO allies.
Then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad, in order to wrest back the state had introduced “chief minister rotationship”, with the electoral rolls packed with dubious super-fast approved voters.
That’s the beginning of what Rahman described as “when other leaders are no longer the leaders (he must be referring to Mahathir), we were left with the problem of illegal immigrants”.
UMNO is the one who created the mother of all problems in Sabah, the illegal immigrants, and yet Rahman praised Najib as “the prime minister also had to face this issue and that was why the Royal Commission of Inquiry (the RCI on illegal immigrants in Sabah) was created”.
The question is, after all these years of merry-go-round investigation, inquiry, raids and whatsoever actions been taken, have we restored justice by putting those culprits for the right judicial judgement? None.
Some UMNO politicians forget easily. They also tend to put all the blames with the bureaucrat, their favourite scapegoat, when most of the times the bureaucrats take instructions from their political masters in UMNO and BN.
Najib might have done something for Sabah, but it is still very far from satisfying as our people continue to languish in poverty, a situation now compounded by Najib’s initiative, the GST.
Rahman should reflect on the fact that though Najib initiated a peace deal in south Philippines, nevertheless just a year later, we had the Suluk invasion in Tanduo, Tungku.
We now have a very costly ESSCOM to look after our security issue along the coastal area, but last week we just heard reports of armed men seen again in Kinabatangan areas, and that a robbery happened in Bait Island, off Semporna.
If not for UMNO/BN losing their two-third majority in 2008, and further declined into just 47% of popular vote in 2013, Rahman himself would not have been appointed a federal minister with the portfolio traditionally held by MCA.
New political landscape has provided a window of opportunity for Sabah BN leaders, and they should exploit fully the opportunity to bargain for institutional reform which benefits the rakyat, not just becoming defender for an embattled party president who is now desperate for supports.
A true concerned and committed Sabahan leader should fight for institutional reform, such as fiscal decentralisation, instead of apple-polishing a particular political leader who is trying to be a nice guy to Sabah.
A blind loyalty to Putrajaya will only make Sabah a beggar in the Federation.
Sabahans should understand the “game of thrones” of UMNO. Our leaders should understand that it is the obligation for every prime minister to develop Sabah, as anything good done for Sabah, is also good for the entire country.