It was exactly five months ago that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak purged the government by sacking the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, a senior Cabinet Minister, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal and the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail and unleashed forces which resulted in “nine days of madness” in Putrajaya dissolving not only the high-powered multi-agency Special Task Force into the RM55 billion 1MDB scandal headed by the then Attorney-General but also the arrest or immediate transfers of recalcitrant officers in various investigative and enforcement agencies like the Police, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Bank Negara and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC), as well as the derailing of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigations into the 1MDB scandal for more than three months until the election of a “cari makan” PAC Chairman.

Many strange and extraordinary things happened in these five months and one of them is Najib’s silence on whether the sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General has anything to do with the preparation of corruption charges in the Attorney-General’s Chambers against him as Prime Minister.

Najib is a seasoned politician and he cannot be unaware of such prevalent talk, not only in the country but worldwide, that he saved his premiership and political life by the skin of the teeth with the sudden and pre-emptive sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General exactly five months ago, or he would have found himself in the dock answering corruption charges.

Will Najib clear the air on the sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General before the year 2005 ends in four days’ time, as nobody gives credence to the official reason of health given for Gani Patail’s termination of service – especially as Gani looked very healthy and well in his three public appearances after his summary sacking: twice in September in connection with the murder of DPP Kevin Morais and third time at the Bar Council forum on “Sosma: Wolf in sheep’s clothing” in early November.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Departmnet, Datuk Paul Low, is right – it is a stigma that the Najib Cabinet is not “God-fearing” when not a single Cabinet Minister, including Low, had dared to voice any protest or even query as to the propriety for the sudden and pre-emptive sacking of Gani Patail as Attorney-General three months before his retirement!

Leaving moral judgement aside for the moment, recognition is due to Najib for a world feat for Malaysia in securing the biggest donation for a general election campaign, as no other world leader is known to have secured such a gargantuan donation for a general election campaign – although under Malaysian law, the sum of RM2.6 billion is more than 26 times the total amount legally permissible to be spent by all the 222 Parliamentary and 505 State Assembly candidates which UMNO/BN fielded in the 13th General Election!

If an opposition party or individual had received RM2.6 billion donation from foreign sources for the 13th General Election, all the enforcement and investigative authorities in the country will be crawling all over the opposition party or individual concerned, but clearly, this is not the case with Najib.

Why is Najib unable to break the silence about the real reason for Gani Patail’s sudden sacking?

Five fundamental questions about Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal are still waiting for Najib’s answer, viz:

Firstly, who donated the RM2.6 billion – whether one donor or more, and which foreign country did the donation come from;

Secondly, who had benefited from the RM2.6 billion donation for the 13GE campaign, the identity of UMNO/BN leaders, including Ministers and MPs, who had received monies, and how much;

Thirdly, what is left of the RM2.6 billion donation, and where is it now?

Fourthly, what is the motive for the RM2.6 billion “donation:”; and

Fifthly, why Najib had not put the RM2.6 billion into UMNO accounts?

Never mind about legal suits filed by UMNO members in connection with the RM2.6 billion “donation” meant for UMNO but channelled into Najib’s personal bank accounts, or even the outcome of various investigative agencies inside the country, doesn’t Najib owe a duty to 30 million Malaysians to demonstrate that as Prime Minister, he is not guilty of any criminal breach of trust with regard to the RM2.6 billion “donation” for the 13GE campaign?

Najib’s fitness as Prime Minister immediately comes into question if he cannot see that as Prime Minister, he owes a responsibility to give a swift and satisfactory accounting of the twin mega scandals, and not to go through the charade of a promise to answer all questions about the RM2.6 billion scandal and then reneging on the undertaking on the last day of the 25-sitting budget parliamentary meeting on Dec. 3?

Despite the statement by the MACC special operations director Bahri Mohd Zin that MACC will submit the findings of its investigations into the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal and the former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International to the Attorney-General next week, nobody entertains any hope or belief that justice can be done within the existing bureaucratic framework unless a genuinely independent commission is established to investigate Najib’s twin mega scandals.

By MACC’s past records including those of its predecessor, all claims by MACC that it could investigate Najib’s twin mega scandals “freely, transparently and professionally” is nothing but “hot air”.

If Malaysia is to start anew to believe in the credibility and ability of the various enforcement and investigative agencies to carry out their tasks efficiently and professionally without “fear or favour”, let Najib start with a full statement to explain his role and the status of various government investigations into the twin mega scandals to date.