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QUESTION TIME This is a fight which transcends everything, including race, religion, belief and political affiliation.

Before we get down and dirty to the 10 ways to get Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to go, let us reiterate clearly and briefly why he should step down, using in addition to all the numerous reports previously, the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recent civil court filings.

Malaysia has set a new record for itself - the DOJ has seized over US$1 billion (about RM4 billion) in US assets bought using money misappropriated (the DOJ uses the term as well) from wholly government-owned strategic development company 1Malaysia Development Bhd, or 1MDB, the largest ever such seizure in US history

Some things have been plainly established as far as 1MDB is concerned - beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of this, the main one is that at least US$3.5 billion - that’s a massive RM14 billion - has been misappropriated from 1MDB, despite our attorney-general ridiculously denying it.

"The attorney-general emphasised that to date, there has been no evidence from any investigation conducted by any law enforcement agencies in various jurisdictions which shows that money has been misappropriated from 1MDB," AG Mohamed Apandi Ali shamelessly said in blatant disregard of evidence in a statement last Thursday.

It is a matter of public knowledge that 1MDB claims to have paid US$3.5 billion to Aabar PJS Ltd, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Corp, or IPIC. And IPIC has denied that it ever received the money.

In other words, US$3.5 billion - the entire proceeds of two bond issues - has simply disappeared from 1MDB. If that is not misappropriation of money from 1MDB, what is? What more evidence of misappropriation does the AG need? Further, in arbitration proceedings to be held later, IPIC is actually claiming US$6.5 billion, US$3 billion or some RM12 billion more than the money that went missing, making a grand total of RM26 billion!

The truly surprising thing is that 1MDB has until today not even made a police report over this disappearance of billions of ringgit, something which must have happened not by accident but by a wilful criminal act. Worse, this act of not investigating an obvious and massive crime is inexplicable and can only be attributed to the direct intervention of Malaysian public official no 1, the prime minister.

Earlier reports said that US$1.03 billion, or over RM4 billion, was transferred into the accounts of Good Star Ltd, effectively from 1MDB. Malaysia’s central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia, in leaked documents, confirmed that Good Star was owned by 35-year old Low Taek Jho or Jho Low, widely believed to be the mastermind behind the 1MDB heists.

Of this some US$680 million (about RM2.6 billion) wound its way into Najib’s personal bank accounts through a circuitous route documented by various news reports, including The Wall Street Journal. Najib at first denied this but subsequently said it was a donation from Saudi Arabia even though the money has been traced back to 1MDB. Again, the new AG found no wrongdoing, accepting Najib’s explanation that it was a donation!

The DOJ filings assert that US$3.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and that over US$1 billion of these which found their way into US assets have now been seized, including assets owned by Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz and Jho Low, adding to the weight of already overwhelming evidence of criminality in 1MDB.

The revelations make Najib’s dogged clinging on to the post of prime minister of Malaysia, using a combination of power and patronage to keep detractors in line and influencing enforcement authorities, even more untenable than ever before. But he shows no signs of stepping down.

The only way that he will is if those in authority and in a position to do so take all legitimate action against him and stop him from abusing his position as the number one public official in Malaysia and there is overwhelming public disapproval to boot.

At the heart of that has to be an expression of extreme displeasure, to put it mildly, over the occurrence of corruption at the highest levels in Malaysia by the general public and a demonstration of intolerance for such behaviour by all levels of our society.

Here are 10 ways, that we can get Najib to go and they all call for measures that involve large sections of people...

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