COMMENT There is a Malay saying, ‘Tiada asap tanpa api’ (which literally means, there is no smoke without a fire).

The way Malaysiakini journalist Hafiz Yatim has put together the jigsaw puzzles explains it all. This is by and large the most plausible explanations that we have seen, compared to Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi’s story of an old Umno man plotting to overthrow the government, or Salleh Said Keruak’s ‘economic sabotage’ spin.

If there were indeed no draft charge sheet against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, why all the sudden and unceremonious removal of former attorney-general Gani Patail, the transfer of two senior Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) staff to the Prime Minister’s Department, the removal of Muhyiddin Yasin as deputy prime minister during the cabinet reshuffle and the disbanding of the 1MDB task force?

Was Barisan Nasional’s strategic communications director Rahman Dahlan trying to test the water after he found out that there was indeed a charge sheet against Najib, as explained by Hafiz?

In his article, Hafiz has raised some very good questions, because people are interested to know what transpired behind the scenes. It is not that the people are not in the know, but Rahman can either concede to it, or deny that a meeting had ever taken place, but please do not come out with lame excuses that he is not in the know.

If he does not know who or what he is defending, this is indeed a dangerous thing that Rahman and others are protecting.

What most of us want to know is, was the amount of RM42 million which originated from SRC International, an energy company owned by the Finance Ministry, banked into Najib Abdul Razak’s private accounts in three separate transfers?

Apart from this, who was the ‘generous Middle Eastern’ donor who funnelled another RM2.6 billion into the private accounts belonging to one ‘Najib bin Abdul Razak (Dato’ Sri)’?

Tell us the truth

Our cabinet ministers should stop churning out all sorts of lame excuses.

Instead, they should go back to the drawing board and ask the question, “Were all the allegations made by whistleblower Sarawak Report and the Wall Street Journal true?”

They should ask Najib why he had said during the lead-up to last general election and within months of the transfers being made, that no money should be transferred into private accounts as it could lead to corruption. A video clip of his speech has been uploaded in YouTube and highlighted by Kedah Menteri Besar Mukhriz Mahathir himself on his Facebook account .

They should also ask Najib how an amount of RM2 million in cash was banked into Rosmah Mansor’s private account, and why Rosmah has not denied this after it was first highlighted by Sarawak Report .

Where did the money come from? Has any investigation been carried out by the Inland Revenue Board, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency, Bank Negara and the police?

Zahid should ask himself and Najib if both of them have indeed lost the confidence of even Umno members, especially after Muhyiddin was dropped from the cabinet.

Former Maybank chief executive officer Abdul Wahid Omar should tell us what are the bank’s obligations when such a huge amount of cash was deposited into its client’s account.

Ministers in three other component parties - MCA, MIC and Gerakan - should also start raising their questions after looking at both the questions raised by the rakyat and the answers given by their colleagues within the cabinet.

Minister in charge of integrity Paul Low should ask Najib to explain about the integrity pledge which he signed before the last general election, and how an amount of RM41 million was used for the entire election?

Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng has done a calculation and said all it takes is only RM12 million.

Idris Jala should also ask if what Najib and his men have done or said going to help with his push for economic and government transformation programmes (ETP and GTP)? Will Najib’s own actions derail the push for transformation?

Please, Senator Idris, do not even try to suggest that transformation means corruption is a donation, or that the word ‘donation’ in the MACC Act has a totally different meaning when the amount is as huge as RM2.6 billion from a single donor.

The other questions that the ‘appointed’ cabinet ministers should ask Najib is whether the money was all part of a political fund parked overseas, and whether RM2.6 billion was just the tip of the iceberg since Najib did not deny that the money could have been used during the election.

Come back to us

After all the answers have been sought, then come back to us with the more plausible explanations rather than concocting one story after another about an Umno old man plot using legitimate means by securing statutory declarations, about the non-existence of a draft charge sheet when the present attorney-general had admitted to a ‘criminal leak’, and about ‘economic sabotage’ by local ‘traitors.’

It is not about 3 million Umno members supporting Najib, but it is about 24 million rakyat raising a lot of questions within the last few months. This has even overshadowed the ‘Altantuya Shaariibuu case’ and convicted murderer Sirul Azhar Umar’s sudden appearance in Australia.

News of 1MDB has captured anyone’s imagination, and certainly, if there was a single mastermind or plotter, he must be more powerful and successful than Osama bin Laden. The ‘plotter’ appears to have a grip over ‘local treacherous persons’ and Najib’s internal enemies.

Like I told my friend the other day, Bersih 2.0 as a civil society cannot achieve much, but it is only Umno members themselves that can remove their president from within, and ensure that justice is uphold.

Only Muhyiddin, Shafie Apdal, Mukhriz and others who are with Dr Mahathir Mohamad can remove Najib and put in place the leaders who will bring healing to the nation.

It appears to me that there are more than one Umno veteran who wants Najib to resign, and to say that these Umno veterans are carrying out activities that are detrimental to parliamentary democracy is to tell us that you cannot differentiate between the sky and the ground. The world has gone topsy turvy for these leaders.

The story has to come to an end somehow, and for now, I believe there was indeed a draft charge sheet that was planned by Gani. Gani cannot continue to remain silent while the rest of the country are lamenting over the demise of our democratic rights and space.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.