According to organising chairman Cleftus Mojingol, the talk which was supposed to start at 11am and end at 5pm, would have featured prominent speakers including foreign minister Anifah Aman representing his NGO group My Sabah, former chief minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan and Borneo Dayak Forum International (BDF) president and Star president Jeffrey Kitingan.
Other speakers were Gabungan Sabah chairman Mohd Noor Mansor and Dayak Nation Council (DNC) president Paul Rajah from Sarawak, but the latter ended up being the only one of those invited to speak who cared to show up.
“Initially the speakers agreed to come and give their presentations. However, I don’t know what happened but when they heard one speaker had pulled out, one by one the others called to say they could not make it.
“They said they had other previous commitments or some other functions to attend. We had to send out a cancellation notice through social media last night but it seemed that many did not get the notice,” Cleftus told FMT, referring to those who had come to listen to the speakers but ended up being disappointed.
Some people came from as far as Keningau and Kota Marudu to the KDCA hall in Penampang near here.
“I didn’t get the notice. I was really looking forward to listening to what our leaders had to say. I already had my questions that I wanted to ask,” said a public servant who wished only to be known as Merwin.
He said he was attracted to the event because it was organised by an NGO and not political parties.
Cleftus, who is also the chairman of Pertubuhan Kebudayaan Rumpun Dayak Sabah, suspected the speakers might have been pressured not to come today, accusing certain groups of sabotaging the event.
Nonetheless, he said his group, an NGO under the Borneo Dayak Forum International, has decided to reschedule the event to December and hoped that this time around, the selected speakers will not cower under pressure again.
“We have to ensure that knowledge about the Malaysia Agreement 1963 reaches as many people as possible. It is pointless to just know the name but not the issues surrounding it.
“More importantly, we want the correct representation of the issue and to look at various angles without relying on one single source only,” he said.
Meanwhile, the sole speaker who turned up for the event, Paul Rajah, was supposed to talk about land matters affecting the natives in Sarawak.
However, when contacted, he declined to reveal his data, saying that he would only speak in a public forum.
Similar talks on the Malaysia Agreement and Sabah’s rights have been held in the past, drawing hundreds of people from all walks of life.
Yet, some people have begun questioning the significance of such forums especially when little or nothing has changed even after two years since the first major Malaysia Agreement forum was held in 2015.
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