Call for a Council comprising Sabah Chief Minister and ex-Chief Ministers, Deputy Chief Minister and ex-Deputy Chief Ministers, current and former Sabah State Assembly members and MPs to resolve the 50-year nightmare of illegal immigrants with voting rights before 60th Anniversary of formation of Malaysia on 16th September 2023

Before this forum, I was told that former Sabah Chief Minister for nine years (1985 – 1994) and former Deputy Chief Minister for 14 years (2004-2018) was one of the earliest Colombo Plan scholars from Sabah.

But look at what has happened to Colombo. The residences of the Chief Minister and Cabinet Ministers of Sri Lanka were burnt by enraged supporters and the Sri Lanka President had to flee the country for his life.

We do not want Malaysia and Sabah to end up like Colombo and Sri Lanka and this is why we are having this forum tonight.

In preparing for this forum, I have read books and articles about the formation of Malaysia and the decades after the formation of Malaysia, including the book by James Ongkili, the brother of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department on ‘Sabah and Sarawak, Maximus Ongkili, In 1967, James wrote the book: “The Borneo Response to Malaysia 1961-1963”.

One article, “The Sabah State Elections of 1994 and 2020” by Farouq Omaro ended with this statement:

“the fact that Sabahans can continue to be manipulated to the advantage of the Federal government over five decades s simply fantastic. Whether such a scenario can repeat itself remains to be seen.”

This statement makes me think of three personalities – Maximus Ongkili and the Pairin brothers, Joseph Pairin Kitingan and Jeffrey Pairin Kitingan.

Ongkili stirred a hornets’ nest when he said at the recent PBS annual delegates assembly that a “BN party” was responsible for a citizenship-for-votes scheme and that efforts must be undertaken to remove unqualified individuals from the voter list.

I am disappointed that despite such a oblique reference, not a single PBS leader and the PBS itself had not dared to take a strong and uncompromising stand on the 50-year nightmare of illegal immigrants with voting rights.

I have written to Ongkili as Federal Minister in charge of Sabah and Sarawak for help to have access to the 5,000 missing pages in the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting rights.

I have also written to Joseph Pairin as the former Chairman of the Working Committee on the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) from 2014-2018 for his proposals to the Main Committee headed by the then Prime Minister for implementation – and information on what proposals were implemented and what were not implemented.

It is an example of how retrogressive democracy in Sabah and Malaysia had become, illustrating the absence of good governance principles in Sabah and Malaysia, that I do not expect either Ongkili or Joseph Pairin to reply.

Among the reasons for this is the shocking thought that not a single recommendation of the RCI had been accepted or implemented. Can Ongkili or Joseph Pairin clarify?

Last month, Ongkili led a team of legal experts, researchers and officials from the federal and Sabah government to London to search for and study any references related to the state’s rights under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).

Ongkili should realise that resolving the 50-year nightmare of Sabah illegal immigrants with voting rights is the first and most important step to fulfil the MA63 conditions for Sabah

If he needs to refer to the Twenty Points Memorandum submitted to the Inter-Government Committee in 1962, an easy source will be his brother’s book on the Borneo Response to Malaysia before Malaysia’s formation on Sept. 16, 1963.

It is most unfortunate that the Sabah Deputy Chief Minster Jeffrey Kitingan has dismissed all the concerns about illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting rights as “noise” and being more preoccupied with “undocumented foreign workers”.

The problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting rights is a separate issue from “undocumented foreign workers” although they are often intertwined.

Jeffrey should not forget that before he became Sabah Deputy Chief Minister, he was quite eloquent about the nightmare of illegal immigrants with voting rights, calling it a “time bomb” and warning that “unless this monster is destroyed, Sabah will continue to face bigger security problems”.

I do not want this forum to be a finger-pointing festival, to find out who is most responsible for the 50-year nightmare of illegal immigrants with voting rights and who must justify their past actions.

I suggest the formation of a Council comprising the Sabah Chief Minister and ex-Chief Ministers, Deputy Chief Minister and ex-Deputy Chief Ministers, current and former Sabah State Assembly members and MPs to resolve the 50-year nightmare of illegal immigrants with voting rights before the 60th Anniversary of formation of Malaysia on 16th September 2023.

Sabah has the most ex-Chief Ministers – at least 15 of them – but this is an occasion for all the surviving ex Chief Ministers, irrespective of race, religion or politics, to come together and resolve the 50-year Nightmare of Illegal Immigrants with voting rights before Sept. 16 next year.