By Ariff Sabri, Raub MP

The UMNO Supreme council met up a few days back. Everyone in their finest baju Melayu. Each time it meets up, I am wondering how do the other UMNO leaders size up their own paramount leader- Kim Il Najib? Do they in private lament- what a dumb ass our president is?

The man has obviously become silly; many of them will now realise that Najib is not very much different from Bung Mokhtar Radin- that crude and loud leader from some place called Kinabatangan in Sabah.

He must have left his brain somewhere when he concluded that Brazil lost to Germany on the semi-finals because they were leaderless. That is exactly what people are saying about Malaysia, which under Najib, appears to be leaderless. The general consensus on the ground now, is that Najib is worse than Pak Lah. Najib must not confuse popularity as indicative of leadership qualities.

Long ago I have written that if Najib can become PM of Malaysia- then anyone can. That observation was not done out of spite entirely. While he may have that imperial air about him which people can mistake as indicative of a leadership attribute, the truth is, he has no substance. He is no thinker in the calibre of his father. His idea of development and progress is to provide immediate temporary relief and the gratitude expressed by recipients and the elation seen on the faces, taken as approval of what he does. He then declares success. Hurrah!

Najib’s approach to development and progress of Malays for example is that of a person with a fire-fighting mentality. His preference is for short and quick fixes rather than tackling the underlying causes of a problem. He does not see for example, the poverty and backwardness of the Malays as say caused by social structures within that society. Removal and replacement of these social constructs is necessary for liberating the Malays from meek to robust individuals. Nobody progresses without challenging the existing assumptions and conventions.

That is why I say, anyone endowed with money , resources and power can do the job that Najib does. So I repeat, if Najib can become PM, anyone can. Accordingly I can answer the question posed to me repeatedly- whom do you see among the present UMNO leaders can take over Najib? My answer is if Najib can become PM, then anyone out there in the supreme council can. Even Bung Mokhtar Radin.

Even anyone from Pekan. In Pekan, there is a village idiot named Mat Tompel. I don’t know whether he is still alive or not but I have often said, you give Mat Tompel the resources, even he can serve the Pekan people better.
The Chinese have this saying- that all good things come in pairs. The saying must have been crafted over thousands of years’ of observation by Chinese philosophers of human traits and nature and social events. The modern Chinese philosopher however, will never come out with that observation if he has come across Najib and Bung Mokhtar Radin. He would have offered all bad things come in pairs as a saying instead.

Najib and Bung Mokhtar are two peas in a pod. The former thinks by giving leadership lessons from a football match, he has entrenched himself as a perceptive and contemplative leader. The later by a statement which exposed deficient schooling must have thought spontaneity is a leadership virtue. Well, to both, we say, leadership is not a trumpet call to self-importance.

* This article first appeared in sakmongkol.blogspot.com
* The views expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the columnist.