This little known fact was revealed at a national conference on marginalised communities, which arrested the attention of the participants.
They were told that the ideals that gave rise to the birth of a new nation in 1963 have, however, been eroded until those rights have all but disappeared.
“Sabah was given the understanding that it was to remain a national entity within the Malaysian Federation, which was to be a partnership of four national units – Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya,” deputy president of CigMa or Common Interest Group Malaysia, Daniel John Jambun, said in his presentation titled “Lest We Forget”.
Elaborating further, he said: “We were to remain as a ‘negara’ (nation), not to become a ‘negeri’ (state).
“What eventually transpired was a process during which Sabah (like Sarawak) became one of the 13 states in Malaysia, no longer on the same status as Malaya, but just one of the states.”
Later, Jambun said that it was also the reason why Sabah’s head of state was officially called Yang di-Pertua Negara from 1963 till the early 1980s when the title was changed and reduced to Yang di-Pertua Negeri.
Jambun’s paper was based on a book of the same name authored by Dr Chong Eng Leong who agreed to have his book presented as a conference paper to the 220 delegates.
Chong’s book outlines the major losses Sabahans have suffered since independence due to various national policies following the formation of Malaysia.
Chong’s book focused on the “KL-encouraged” influx of Muslim illegal immigrants from Indonesia and Mindanao in the southern Philippines that served to dilute the once majority Christian native population in Sabah.
Unkept promise of autonomy
Jambun charged that the federal government was being disingenuous by claiming that the state had enjoyed tremendous development and numerous benefits since the formation of Malaysia.
“Under Umno, which took over the Sabah government from Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) in 1994, Sabah has ended up becoming the poorest state in Malaysia despite its vast natural wealth God has given us.
“Other than the economic losses, we also suffered loss of major rights and autonomy, as listed in the book, ‘Lest We Forget’,” Jambun said.
He said that a scrutiny of the 20-point agreement clearly showed that Tunku Abdul Rahman and other Malayan and Singapore leaders had promised autonomy or self-determination for Sabah, including retaining its own revenues.
It was a promise that has not been kept, he said.
“In fact, as a strategic move to ‘Malayanise’ Sabah, the population of the state was increased drastically through dubious means, mainly through the infamous ‘Projek IC’ or ‘Projek Mahathir’, which is to give Malaysian identity cards to Muslim illegal immigrants in Sabah to enable them to register as voters and thus change the political landscape.
“Through this project, the population of Sabah dramatically rose to 3.2 million, of which 1.5 million are bona fide Sabahans and 1.7 million foreigners.
“About 70,000 of these foreigners were registered as phantom voters and distributed throughout the constituencies in Sabah to give greater advantage to the ruling BN candidates to win elections.
“This strategy was then complemented by the infamous decision to implement what is called gerrymandering of constituency boundaries to give greater representation to Muslim-majority seats, thus outnumbering the non-Muslim natives,” he said, adding that the obvious manipulation has resulted in Sabah being dubbed BN’s “fixed deposit”.
Jambun also charged that the increase in Muslim-native seats and the reduction in Christian-native ones was made with the intention of forcefully and permanently changing the state’s demography.
This way, there would be more Muslims, thus depriving others of their rights, he said, adding that the issue of disenfranchisement would be brought to international attention.
Citing the revelation in Chong’s book, he disclosed that in the 1970 census, the mostly Christians and pagan Kadazandusuns numbered 215,811, Muslim Bajau and Iranun numbered 77,271 and Malays 18,362.
However, the 2000 census showed that the Kadazandusuns numbered 564,600, while the Bajau and Iranun 343,200, but the Malay suddenly stood at an astonishing 303,500.
He said that in the 1960 census, there was no Malay registered in Sabah, but just Bajau and Iranun.
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