Is it any wonder that poverty is still prevalent in the resource rich states of Sabah and Sarawak after 45 years in Malaysia?

Is it any wonder that poverty is still prevalent in the resource rich states of Sabah and Sarawak after 45 years in Malaysia? 

CT Ali, Free Malaysia Today 

History will tell us that alliances between states are entered into to serve strategic, economic and the national interest of their people.

More often than not these alliances are driven by political leaders who dream of greater glory and national advancement that the sum of such an alliance may bring.

History will also tell us that no nation can survive an alliance with another for too long when the interest of its people are exploited and taken advantage of by the another.

Such is the situation that the people of Sabah and Sarawak now feel they are in – the same Sabah and Sarawak that joined with Singapore and Malaya to form that new nation of Malaysia.

Joined not as the 12th and 13th states under Malaya but as equal partners having equal status and rights within the Federation of Malaysia.

Singapore has since bid adieu to Malaysia because it serves the political purpose of the Umno-led Barisan Nasional government of Malaysia for that to happen. Political Armageddon awaits Umno if Singapore was allowed meaningful participation into the federal politics of Malaysia.

With Singapore conveniently out of the way, this BN government of Malaysia did partake in and willingly encourage the following in Sabah and Sarawak:

• First it proceeded forthwith to export to East Malaysia the politics of race and religion that had enabled Umno to divide and rule the population of Malaya to their political advantage for over 50 years.

• Second this same BN government set out to colonise East Malaysia and took absolute control over their oil, gas and land resources for the benefit of Malaya – or more to the point for the advantage of the political elites in Umno in particular and BN in general.

• Third they allowed with impunity the contemptible practice already embedded in the culture of Sabah and Sarawak politicians to grow indiscriminately – and that is the willingness of these politicians to indulge in party hopping and horse trading – much aided and infused by the proliferation of money politics, rampant state level corruption abuse of power and administrative management already prevalent in Malaya under the Umno-led government of Barisan Nasional.

Is it any wonder that poverty is still prevalent in the resource rich states of Sabah and Sarawak after 45 years in Malaysia?

Is it any wonder that corrupt administrators, crony timber robber baron and massive and endemic corruption now colour the politics in Sabah and Sarawak?

A political landscape that is also not unfamiliar to those in Malaya. A political landscape that any state and people will have to endure where corrupt politicians are allowed to rule not for the good of the people who elected them to office but for their own benefit.

Everyone has an agenda

For me the problems besetting our brothers and sisters in Sabah and Sarawak are no different from that faced by us in Malaya.

Read more at: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2012/12/28/dealing-with-the-borneo-agenda/