Dear MPs,

Please be reminded that you are elected by the rakyat to represent them pertaining to all affairs of the nation as per your oath taken upon swearing in. Once you are sworn in irrespective of whether you are holding any ministerial post or from the opposition your duty is to serve the Agong, country and the rakyat and not any individual.

No doubt loyalty to a leader is a must for the smooth running of a government only if the leader is not faced with integrity and credibility problems. Unfortunately Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is facing one right now.

It’s been over a year since the 1MDB debacle broke out to the whole world when Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published the reports on July 2, 2015. Also to be noted is that Sarawak Report has been publishing the same debacle in its series earlier on, and the website was later blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

Government officials and ministers, in defending the prime minister, claim that the reports were malicious, slander and lies working with the opposition to topple a legitimate government.

Defenders gave different accounts as to how, who and why the RM2.6 billion were in the prime minister’s personal bank accounts, till finally they concluded that it’s a donation from a Saudi prince (with many question marks). All these are words of the mouth without any concrete evidence.

While various investigations were initiated to pacify the rakyat, they all ended abruptly with no specific answers and the attorney-general (AG) closing all the files.

One important point to note is the prime minister, who has been accused of corruption, never came out to defend himself with a full statement to prove his innocence but outsourced his defence to others, where mostly they are contradicting each other, while the threat to sue WSJ never took place.

Dear MPs, I assume you all must have been following this 1MDB news over the year and the above is just a brief summary recap.

Indeed winter seemed to be over, till the US Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped a nuclear bomb on 1MDB.

“The Department of Justice filed a civil complaint seeking to forfeit and recover more than US$1 billion in assets associated with an international conspiracy to launder funds stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, a company wholly owned by the government of Malaysia,” said US attorney-general Loretta E Lynch.

Now this is not something that anyone can brush off as malicious, slander and lies like what the government said of WSJ and Sarawak Report.

Dear MPs, we are not here to debate the 136 pages of documents presented by DOJ but to seek an answer to Najib’s suitability to remain as Malaysia’s prime minister.

Mentioned 36 times in 136 pages

It is intriguing to see government ministers, the AG and some MPs could not figure out who is this Malaysian Official 1 mentioned 36 times in the 136 pages of DOJ documents.

There is no doubt whatsoever Malaysian Official 1 is Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. If he is not, why has he not initiated legal action against those who said so?

The DOJ documents highlighted allegations that US$681 million from a 2013 bond sale by 1MDB was transferred to the account of ‘Malaysian Official 1'. This allegation was also reported by WSJ and Sarawak Report that named Najib as the account holder.

Dear MPs, with many nations investigating 1MDB for fraud and money laundering we can no longer accept the government’s and AG’s argument that there is nothing wrong and nothing was stolen from 1MDB. The rakyat are very furious and frustrated with the government for trying to cover up the whole debacle.

The fact that 2.6 billion was in PM Najib’s accounts, whether from donation or 1MDB, shows that the PM’s integrity and credibility are tainted very badly. How can this type of character remain as the PM of Malaysia?

Dear MPs, this 1MDB debacle is not a political issue but a national one that needs action to be taken to rein in all those involved and repair the damages and shame it has caused to the nation, locally and internationally.

There is no way a clean investigation can be carried out with Najib remaining as PM, who himself is implicated in the whole 1MDB debacle. Loyalty to such a leader can be excused until the overall truth is revealed and he is found to be innocent.

So dear MPs, please get together irrespective of which party you are from, find a solution to get Najib to temporary step aside, form an independent panel (comprising both local and international representatives) to find out the whole truth about 1MDB’s missing billions.

“The truth is out there.”