KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) said about 50,000 Malaysian citizens had signed a petition requesting the federal government to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the illegal immigrant problems in the state.
Its Youth chief Edward Dagul said the petitioners also gave their identity card numbers in the document which would be handed to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak or his deputy Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin during the current parliamentary sitting.
He said they would be expecting a definitive answer from either Najib or Muhyiddin on the call for the formation of the RCI given the seriousness of the illegal immigrant issue in Sabah.
“If I fail to give it to the prime minister or deputy prime minister, I will wait for another time to hand it to him, when they come to the state or during the next parliamentary sitting (in June).
“In the meantime, we will carry on and discuss with the other parties on the opposition front to make this a project for Sabahan youths until we get a definitive answer from the prime minister himself saying: ‘No, we will not have an RCI for this’… then I will leave it up to the people of Sabah to judge,” said Edward yesterday.
Dagul said they also planned to hand copies of the signed petition to Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman during the coming state legislative assembly sitting.
He said the SAPP Youth division kicked off the signature drive in early March after they had lodged a police report against businessman Datu Mohd Akjan Ali Muhammad who allegedly declared himself as the Sultan of Sulu during a ceremony that was held at the latter’s home in Likas, and their initial target was to collect 100,000 signatures.
“According to the secretariat (of the drive), there are probably another 20,000 more signatures,” he said, adding that though they had missed the target by half, those who signed were from across the political spectrum.
Edward disclosed that the campaign faced obstacles in the east coast where there was a higher concentration of illegal immigrants.
“Most of the signatures we collected were from Kota Kinabalu, the west coast and in Sandakan.
“Those who refused to sign were somehow linked to the government or whose family members are in the public service and fear that they would be reprisals if they signed the petition,” he said.
He said they were also unable to visit certain places due to logistic problems and in some cases they were threatened with physical violence.
“In Tawau, we paid to use the space at a building but we were asked to leave when they found out what we were doing.
“The fishmongers in the Penampang fish market also threaten to beat us if we held the drive there,” said Edward.