Najib needs to wake up to reality, says Raub MP

Ariff Sabri pooh poohs the PM's 'dream' of public support and Bugis glory.

PETALING JAYA: Raub MP Ariff Sabri has taken Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to task for claiming that he has the people’s support and for overplaying his Bugis ancestry.

“Najib must be sleeping; he has not got the support of the people,” says Ariff. “He and his party got 47% of the popular votes, but stayed on.”

Najib made the claim two days ago in a speech in Tawau that was remarkable for its defiance against former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is on a campaign to force his resignation.

Ariff relates the defiance to Najib’s recently acquired habit of making references to his Bugis origins.

“This thing about ancestry and lineage is being overplayed,” he says. “Most of us pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, cultivate ourselves and earn our places.”

He refers to the Quran’s teaching about Satan being too proud of his ancestry. “When God asked him to bow down to Adam, Satan refused. He protested, saying that how could he, created of superior fire, prostrate himself before Adam, a being created out of lowly mud and shaped to form?”

Ariff alleges – although he says he hopes he is wrong – that “the only common thread of Bugisness that Najib has with the renowned Bugis of old is piracy.”

“In the olden days,” he says, “the Bugis plied and raided the seas and oceans and gave Bugis and all Malays in the Nusantara a sense of pride. The modern Bugisman, who is the MP of Pekan, raids our treasury and all other fund centres.”

He says Najib has shaped himself in the mould of the ancient aristocrats, who used to demand absolute loyalty.

“While my ancestors fought with kerises, parangs, swords, spears and cannon and guns against the British and pro-British royalists, Najib’s Bugis ancestors made merry in their castles and harem dens.”

Noting Najib’s assertion that he would stay on as long as he had Umno’s support, Ariff repeats what he has often said – that many Umno leaders depend on the Prime Minister’s patronage to keep making money.

“These leaders,” he says, “will encourage him and advise him that Mahathir is beatable. But Najib must remember that these were the same leaders who once licked the traces of Mahathir’s footsteps.”

Ariff expects Najib to remain stubborn against calls for his resignation.

“It’s not in the nature of the man to resign from his post,” he says. “His stubbornness, however, does not arise out of steely resolve but is motivated more by the fear of losing all the trappings and privileges of power.

“Who would want to employ Najib as a lecturer, for example? Or a business consultant?”

Ariff makes a reference to the controversy over Tabung Haji’s purchase of land from 1MDB, calling for the prosecution of those responsible.

“If the deal is suspect or has gone awry,” he says, Tabung Haji Chairman Abdul Azeez Rahim and the directors of the fund “are completely to blame – they and the only person who could have directed them – Najib Razak. If anyone there has committed wrongs, they should be prosecuted and, if found guilty, sent to jail.”