For years, we’ve been told to blame Putrajaya, globalisation, even Beijing. That our land was taken, our resources drained, our people marginalised because someone else – some faceless federal authority or foreign conglomerate – outplayed us.
But peel back the slogans, the press statements, the handshakes at investment summits, and a darker truth emerges: Sabah was not taken. It was traded.
And not for progress. For profit. For position. For political convenience.
The story is familiar. Foreign investors arrive with glossy slideshows and promises of jobs, technology transfers, and infrastructure. The state rolls out the red carpet—often literally—signing MOUs by the dozens. But once the flashbulbs fade, what’s left behind is too often a cleared forest, a fenced coast, or a community wondering how they lost the very land they once called home.
From Korean-financed hydro dams in Ulu Padas, to Chinese-backed property projects and mining ventures quietly issued licenses in Semporna—Sabah is open for business, but closed to scrutiny. Foreign money flows in, but rarely down. The deals are opaque, the equity lopsided, and the beneficiaries painfully predictable.
Let’s be clear. The problem isn’t foreign investment. It’s the terms—and who negotiates them. And in Sabah, it’s not Beijing or KL pulling the strings. It’s our own leaders, signing off in the name of “development,” while locals are left negotiating compensation for land they didn’t know they’d lost.
We say we want to empower Sabahans. Then we hand over thousands of hectares to outsiders, promising that some trickle-down benefit will eventually materialise. We speak of industrialisation, but our GLCs bleed money and our vocational graduates drive Grab cars. We talk about clean energy, yet we flood indigenous lands for power exports we don’t need. We claim to stand up to Putrajaya, but beg for allocations every budget cycle.
Sabah’s problem isn’t just neglect. It’s complicity.
In the rush to catch up with Peninsular Malaysia, we’ve traded vision for vanity. We chase mega projects with little industrial base. We announce data centres in districts with unstable power. We talk about foreign universities but won’t fix rural schools. And when our youth leave—because there’s nothing left to build here—we act surprised.
The irony is hard to miss: the same political class that cries foul over Sabah’s poverty has no problem cutting ribbon after ribbon on projects that offer no real ownership to Sabahans. They sign away forests to logging proxies, then attend environmental forums. They approve mining surveys, then deny any plans to mine. They turn land alienation into strategy, and call it progress.
And all the while, the federal government watches—and sometimes joins in. Because as long as Sabah keeps exporting raw materials and importing silence, nobody in power has a reason to complain.
But what happens when the land runs out? When the investors pull out? When the next debt-fuelled GLC collapses? Do we blame another external enemy—or do we finally admit that the betrayal started from within?
Sabah needs investment, yes. But not at the cost of sovereignty. Not at the cost of disenfranchising our own people. And certainly not at the cost of repeating the same old formula—foreign capital, local elites, and a public asked to be patient while their future is signed away.
If we want to move forward, the question is no longer “Who is exploiting Sabah?”
The question is: Why do we keep letting them?
