SABAH RCI Sabah's demography was "deliberately" changed in order to increase the Muslim population in the state, claimed Star chairperson Jeffrey Kitingan today.

Jeffrey said this exercise was done in order to make Sabah a Muslim majority state and justify Umno's entrance into the state.

"In 1963, there was only 4% or 5% Malay population in Sabah. It used to be a non-Muslim majority state," he told the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on immigrants in Sabah.

"This was also the only way for them to stop the rotation system (for the chief minister's post) and take control of Sabah," he added.

 "The problem lies with the government. The government is in itself involved in the whole scheme," he said.

"I don't know whose idea was this, but the idea was definitely to take control of Sabah politically," he added.

"Now, there are more Malays than any other group (in Sabah)," he said.

"What's happened is a threat to our sovereignty, our independence. Who's responsible? It's the leaders," he emphasised.

Ongoing project

Jeffrey said that when he was reporting the loss of his identity card to the National Registration Department in 1990, he was told in confidence by an officer that a "project" was ongoing to give citizenship to illegal immigrants.

"He handed me a thick stack of documents, amongst which he said that there were over 60,000 people who were given ICs in this project. (The officer) said it was a directive from the headquarters," he said.

Jeffrey said he handed the documents over to his party at that time, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), but did not follow up on the issue as he was detained shortly after that under the Internal Security Act (ISA) from 1991 to 1994.

"I remember, before being detained under ISA, (former prime minister) Dr Mahathir (Mohamad) saw me and told me "Jeffrey, don't teach the people what they don't know". They (leaders) didn't want the people to be educated of their rights," Jeffrey said.

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