“RM2k legal fee is all I can afford if Abang Jo wants to nail me; beyond that, he can just throw me in jail”

Focus Malaysia:

“RM2k legal fee is all I can afford if Abang Jo wants to nail me; beyond that, he can just throw me in jail”

By Nehru Sathiamoorthy

SARAWAK Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg and his team have filed a police report against me. I really don’t know what is wrong with him.

The news reports didn’t explicitly name me as the writer that Abang Jo is filing a police report against but I’m pretty sure it’s me because Abang Jo and his team have been repeatedly disparaging me for almost three weeks.

Sure, I called him as surviving and thriving by luck despite possessing no merit or abilities but he has been saying a whole lot of things about me, too.

He and his team has been accusing me of being jealous of Sarawak’s success, lazy, being a ghost writer/an unethical writer, being obviously a pen for hire, being the harbinger of doom, being a disseminator of falsehood, being someone who is trying to disrupt Sarawak’s economic progress, being someone who is trying to destabilise Sarawak in every possible way and who knows what else.

One article even mentioned “it is obvious that the article criticising Abang Johari is not the work of the mercenary journalist alone – invisible hands are at work obviously!”

If what I said about him was “criminally defamatory”, then logically, what he said about me is criminally defamatory, too. If I had no basis for saying whatever I said about him, then he has no basis for saying whatever he has been saying about me either.

I’m not even a ghost writer to begin with. My full name appears in every article that I write.

But who am I kidding to talk about logic in this Thucydidean Malaysia. In this Thucydidean state, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”


Accepting destiny

Abang Jo is the Sarawak Premier and the kingmaker in Putrajaya. He can do whatever he wants. I only have two pairs of jeans and drive a 20-year-old Proton Wira. I’ve already accepted the fact that I must suffer what I must.

Sarawal Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg speaks at the official launch of the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) coalition in Kuching on Feb 26, 2020 (Image credit: The Star)

I called a lawyer up and asked how badly I’m going to get it. He said that if the criminal defamation charges go to court and it sticks, I’m going to end up in jail for two years.

But he added that there is also a chance that I might get hit with a civil defamation suit and if that suit sticks, I most probably will have to declare myself bankrupt because I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to pay whatever damages that I’m supposed to pay.

The lawyer whom I spoke to also said that if the police call me up, I can give him a call. He’ll then come and bail me out because it is a bailable offence. For this service, I’ll have to pay him RM2,000.

RM2,000 is the max that I’m willing to pay for this entire ordeal. Beyond that, if the cops or Abang Jo’s lawyers want to get me, they can just throw me in prison because I don’t have the money to go through this entire process.

Plus, I don’t feel that it’s my job to defend myself either. If what I said is false, then I deserve to go to jail. If what I said is the truth, then the truth should defend itself and defend me, too, in the process.

Honestly, this entire episode is actually making me feel like the little kid in the fable The Emperor Has No Clothes.

In the fable, some fraudsters around the emperor claim that they’ve dressed up the emperor with the finest clothes in the world although they dress him up with no clothes while the entire kingdom would pretend as if the emperor were indeed wearing the finest clothes in the world despite being stark naked.

‘Throw me in jail if you can’

The entire charade goes on until a little kid pointed out the obvious that the emperor is completely naked.

In a similar manner, people around Abang Jo are probably telling him that he is the most capable leader in ASEAN and Asia while in the process “dressed him up” with all sorts of great achievement simply because he is the “emperor” of Sarawak.

To Abang Jo, I said it once and I will say it again and again until you put me in jail if you are really as skillful and capable as you think you are.

Former premier Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob has already promised to give Sabah and Sarawak 35% of the seats in the Parliament two years ago.

Current Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has also said that among the first thing he would do during his tenure is to return whatever is owed to Sabah and Sarawak.

Sarawak is today the kingmaker in Malaysia. All Abang Jo has to do to get Sabah and Sarawak the 35% of the seat that it is due to both Borneo states is to tell Putrajaya, “Give me 35% of the seat by this month-end or I’ll withdraw Sarawak’s support to the Madani government, thus causing it to collapse”.

If he can get Sabah and Sarawak 35% of the seats by year-end, I’ll take back what I said about Abang Jo. If he can’t, then he should accept that what I said about him is true. – June 12, 2024



Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a roving tutor who loves politics, philosophy and psychology.