The “Malu Apa BossKU” campaign will be mortally crippled, anti-corruption consciousness take a big leap forward and improvement in Malaysia’s Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) if Najib admits and condemns 1MDB corruption

After my reply yesterday to Malaysiakini columnist S. Thayaparan who penned “Kit Siang helps Najib launder his reputation”, Thayaparan added a 16-paragraph addendum to his article, which deserves a response.

Thayaparan asked very naïve questions.

Can Thayaparan envisage how the “Malu Apa BossKU” campaign would be mortally crippled and how anti-corruption consciousness will take a big leap if Najib Razak admits and condemns 1MDB corruption?

Or is Thayaparan like the Chief Commissioner of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Azam Baki who yesterday ran down the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) after seeing Malaysia getting the lowest ranking of No. 62, which will go even lower in the new TI CPI 2022 to be released in January next year?

Najib has emerged as virtually the ultimate UMNO leader, even more powerful and influential than any UMNO leader, and has not relinquished his ambition to return as Malaysia’s Prime Minister, whether tenth or eleventh PM of Malaysia;

How can this national infamy and ignominy be averted?

One way is through the collapse of the “Malu Apa BosskU” campaign and another is for UMNO and Barisan Nasional to rediscover their patriotic duty and return to the nation-building principles and policies which the nation’s founding fathers have written into the Constitution and Rukun Negara, highlighting the principles of Malaysia as a plural society, good governance, integrity of public officials, meritocracy, the rule of law, the doctrine of separation of powers, parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.

Has Najib forgotten “swimming pool” lesson of his father, Tun Razak, as recalled by his brother, Nazir Razak in the book ”What’s In A Name” (page 51), where Nazir wrote:

“When we were all still young my brothers and I once trooped into my father’s office with a request to make: we asked him to build a swimming pool in the grounds of Seri Taman. My eldest brother Najib was the ringleader, corralling the rest of us to make the case, standing in front of my father’s desk in his study. My father listened to our proposal carefully and then calmly dismissed it. ‘How would it look,’ he asked, eyebrows raised, ‘if the Prime Minister spent public money on building a swimming pool for his family?’”

In 1979, at the UMNO General Assembly, the third Prime Minister , Hussein Onn warned that Malaysia will be destroyed if its leaders are “dishonest, untrustworthy and corrupt” and expressed the hope that the RM100 million Bank Rakyat scandal would be a “bitter lesson to other government institutions and agencies including companies and subsidiaries set up by the Government”.

Has Najib forgotten the legacies of the first three Prime Ministers - Tunku Abdul Rahman who wanted Malaysia to be “a haven of peace, harmony and happiness” and “a beacon of light in a difficult and distracted world”; the second Prime Minister and his father Tun Razak Hussein with regard to the “swimming pool” lesson and the third Prime Minister, Tun Hussein Onn’s warning that Malaysia will be destroyed by “dishonest, untrustworthy and corrupt” leaders in creating the monstrous multi-billion dollar mega 1MDB financial scandal with fugitive financier Jho Low?

The Finance Minister, Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz told Parliament yesterday that 1MDB debt stood at RM32.08 billion as of June 30.

Between April 2017 and May 2022, the government channelled financial assistance in the form of loans or advances totalling RM10.85 billion via the Finance Ministry and Minister of Finance Incorporated (MoF Inc) to pay off 1MDB’s debt commitments and interest.

I know nothing about Najib’s allegation of “conflict-of-interest” of the judge who jailed him for 12 years and fined him RM210 million in his first 1MDB corruption trial, but the “conflict-of-interest” issue of the judge raised by Najib, if any, does not touch on the issue of Najib’s 1MDB corruption for which he was jailed 12 years and fined RM210 million.

Even up to now, Najib has taken the position that there is no 1MDB scandal and spawned a “Malu Apa BossKU” movement based on the notion that the 1MDB scandal is a figment of imagination.

Such denial complex by Najib, “Malu Apa BossKU” movement and UMNO can only be punctured by Najib owning up to the 1MDB corruption.

I know that there is very slim chance that Najib would see his patriotic duty to condemn the 1MDB corruption which would not only cripple the “Malu Apa BossKU” movement, caused a great leap in anti-corruption consciousness and even see an improvement in Malaysia’s TI CPI but has Thayaparan any better suggestion?