By : DANIEL JOHN JAMBUN
IN DATUK Shafie Apdal’s
comment about the opposition’s promise to give 20% royalty for its oil if it
was voted to power, he stressed only two important points, that is, Sabah
shouldn’t take 20%“because it needs to share its wealth” and “the opposition
should not makes promises that causes rift among the people.”
I have one thing to say
about what he said: these are some of the dumbest and most idiotic statements
we have heard in the political history of Sabah. It is no better than when
Datuk Salleh Said Keruak said the people should blame themselves for the
increase in illegal immigrants in Sabah, or when Tun Mahathir said the illegals
in Sabah should be given citizenships because they can speak Bahasa Malaysia!
How ridiculous of Shafie to
say that Sabah needs to share it wealth with non-oil producing states in
Malaysia. First of all the oil belong to us, but 95% is being taken away. All
we are asking for is this 95% being taken away be reduced to 80%. That’s still
a lot of sharing to satisfy Shafie.
Strangely, he admitted he
himself wants 20% royalty but at the same time said he is happy with 5%! What?
He rather sees Sabah remain poor, rather then get a little bit more of what
belong to us in the first place.
Isn’t it ridiculous to
reject an increase in oil royalty on the ground that we need to share our good
fortune with the non-oil states? If we believe in this twisted economic logic
then we should share whatever we have – everything including wealth as well as
problems.
Why not share our
misfortunes as well, such as our highest poverty rate, lack of developments,
illegal immigrants and high prices of basic commodities? Doesn’t Shafie realize
that with just 20% oil royalty, we can already solve most of these problems? Is
he saying that we decided to be part of Malaysia so that the Federal Government
can take away what we have and cause us to be the poorest state?
No, we formed Malaysiawith
the promises of progress, development and wealth, not this poverty which Shafie
seems to prefer. Being part of the Federal Government, Shafie is also an
accomplice in the scheme to strip Sabah of its wealth, and he is admitting he
prefers it that way!
The other silly thing Shafie
said is that the opposition is making this promise to cause a rift among the
people. Is Shafie still a greenhorn in politics, or is he now behaving like the
typical Umno leaders who are telling the people that we shouldn’t speak up the
truth because “it causes disunity among the people”?
Has he forgotten that we are
living in a democratic society and now thinks we are in an autocratic regime?
How stupid to say that we shouldn’t say anything in politics to cause rifts
among the people!
This is what we politicians
have been doing since day one –to speak the truth and to expose lies of the
other party to educate the people, and now we have “caused a rift among the
people” (memecah-belahkan rakyat), that is to cause them to go into at least
two camps, the ruling coalition and the opposition!
Is Shafie against this? Does
Shafie prefer it if we don’t have any election and everyone joins the BN? Will
that be good for us, or for Shafie, in the long run? Then we don’t need
politics, we don’t need elections of parliament!
What I suspect is that
Shafie is very worried that the real rift is happening in the BN. Many BN
members have long started to love the promise of 20% royalty and had left the
BN to support the opposition, causing a rift among the BN members (not among
the people), because as Shafie says, who doesn’t want 20% royalty?
I would advise Shafie to
refrain from making childish statements in the future as if we the rakyat are
so uneducated, backward and unable to think intelligently.
No comments:
Post a Comment