At least half a dozen of Sabah Chief Ministers would not be Sabah Chief Ministers if not for the illegal immigrants problem in Sabah

At least half a dozen of Sabah Chief Ministers would not be Sabah Chief Ministers if not for the illegal immigrants problem in Sabah.

Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) president Maximus Ongkili stirred a hornet’s nest when he accused a Barisan Nasional party for being involved in a citizenship-for-votes scheme where the beneficiaries were the pendatang tanpa izin (PTI) because “they did not want PBS to be the government in Sabah”.

A former Sabah Chief Minister Salleh Said Keruak told the Sabah BN convention yesterday that Ongkili's allegations were slander.

He said: "I am so angry reading the news, Max (Maximus) is crazy, he made a statement saying a party in BN has fake voters, and issues fake ICs… if he mentions BN we will lodge a police report because this is slandering.”

Salleh is protesting too much, for Ongkili was speaking the truth. Even former Prime Minister Najib Razak admitted that there was such a project as “Project IC”.

But PBS leaders, especially Joseph Pairin Kitingan and Ongkili, are not free from blame, for Joseph Pairin was Sabah Deputy Chief Minister for 14 years from 2004 until the 14th General Election in 2018 after rejoining Barisan Nasional in 2002 while Ongkili was a Cabinet Minister from 2004 to 2018 and both did nothing to resolve the problem.