I remember Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said something interesting (especially when it is seen in the present context) when he gave a speech during the dinner held after the first Perdana Global Peace Conference that was held at PWTC over a few days in November last year.

Abdullah remarked that when his secretary told him that he had been invited to the dinner by former prime minister Mahathir Mohammed and had been asked to give a speech, Abdullah said, in his own words, 'This is an order, I must obey'.

This drew loud laughter from all those who were at the dinner, which I also attended, and we thought he was joking. It was a good one, everybody felt. Abdullah went on further to say that after all Mahathir had been his boss for 22 years, so he had to obey. What did not strike everybody at the dinner at that time was the timing of the joke.

It was at a time when some of the issues that are controversial were still not determined yet. The Abdullah administration, for example, had not yet officially concluded that they wanted a halt to the plan to build the bridge whether it was to be a full one or a half one. This, and other, issues were still under negotiations then.

I am sure Mahathir, when he heard that remark at the dinner, must have been assured that the plan to build the bridge, especially, would go on. He must have enjoyed that dinner a lot more than I did, or for that matter, anybody else in the hall. Then not too many months later, we heard that the bridge plan was unilaterally scrapped by the Abdullah administration for reasons best known to them, and this even startled the Singaporean leaders.

This must have badly shocked Mahathir who thought the 'joke' Abdullah gave during the dinner was a good sign that everything was okay with the Abdullah administration and it represented just an extension of his own which he had passed on to Abdullah. As it later turned out, this is not the case.

Abdullah might have been in wee bit too hasty in conducting himself as prime minister and in less than three years deciding to stamp his mark. This he does at the expense of his predecessor who had taken 22 years to stamp his mark on the history of the country. Abdullah must have also realised that his time as prime minister may not be as long as Mahathir's, so he needed to so something hasty.

Unfortunately, he is doing it at the expense of someone else. And the someone else is none other than Mahathir. Therefore what Mahathir said about people who are not showing gratitude is true. Anyone who does not show gratitude won't last in the cabinet. And the present cabinet members are willing to hit the gong for Abdullah just so that they can continue to dance to it. In the past they used to do that with Mahathir; now they are doing it with Abdullah.

It's okay for the present Umno members of the Abdullah cabinet to show their gratitude to him. But who does Abdullah show his gratitude to other than to God if not to Mahathir? I may not be a big fan of Mahathir in his later years as prime minister although I still treasure a one-on-one meeting I had with him in his office in Putrajaya once.

But I still believe he has been had by someone whom he had trusted to carry the baton. Unfortunately, even before running around the stadium, so to speak, Abdullah had decided to throw the baton.

I personally would not be happy if something I had given to someone is not looked after and is abandoned. Worse if it is a cabinet that I took 22 years to make myself that is allowed by the new owner to fall on me.