COMMENT | Prime Minister Najib (Abdul Razak), if one had the privilege to meet him before, exudes gentle calmness. The problem starts there too: nice doesn't cut it.

By allowing 1MDB to wallow in squalor, without any punishment, Jho Low and his ilks are now sunbathing in the Caribbean, enjoying the billions that they fleeced from the country and the people.

To the degree Najib exercised any authority, as he did when he removed the entire board of the Global Movement of Moderates Foundation 2012, he ended up passing the reins of leadership to Saifuddin Abdullah before gifting it to Nasharuddin Mat Isa.

The latter hasn't done much at GMMF as the world knows, and his clueless on how to promote moderation when his own party PAS is fixated on hudud (i.e. Islamic criminal laws), without nary an idea of the larger objectives of Maqasid Al Shariah, which emphasises the importance of expanding the goals of shariah to keep up with the evolving world.

Thus industrialisation, digitisation, freeing up the economy, and battling endemic corruption, can all fall under Maqasid Al Shariah too. This is the consensus of classical jurists and scholars.

Now when the PM oozes Mr Nice all over, the structural corruption in the country will just get deeper and deeper. Foremost among the problems is Felda or Felda Global Ventures (FGV).

Over the last few years, nearly RM 400 billion worth of stocks raised in 2012 has been wiped out, according to the calculation of P Gunasegaran at Malaysian Biz Kini.

When more corruption scandals exploded in FGV, as occasioned by the delayed payment from a company in battle ridden Afghanistan, Isa Samad the chairman was – finally – removed (although it was said he resigned unilaterally) but rewarded with another cushy position in Spad.

Yet Spad is responsible for the KL East Coast Highway, which is worth some RM55 billion, and the KL Singapore High-Speed Railway too.

Granted that Najib wants to make the high-speed Railway project the fount of Bandar Malaysia, the decision to put Isa Samad at the helm can potentially downgrade the whole Bandar Malaysia project.