COMMENT | Early this month, I met an old friend from Sabah at a Sunday service in a Petaling Jaya church. I invited Lawrence for dinner after the evening mass.

I have not been to Sabah for a few years and I wanted a first-hand update on happenings in the Land below the Wind. I knew Lawrence is a member of Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), although he holds no position higher than a committee member at branch level.

Lawrence has been working in Kuala Lumpur for some 15 years, so he told me. He travels back to his home state regularly as is expected of his job in the oil and gas industry.

Over dinner, our conversation naturally drifted to politics. Shafie Apdal, Joseph Pairin Kitingan, Musa Aman, Yong Teck Lee, Maximus Ongkili and of course, the ever-colourful Bung Mokhtar Raidin were among the personalities that cropped up.

Of particular interest was Jeffrey Kitingan, another colourful Sabah politician, whom Lawrence seems to respect and hold in high esteem, even from afar.

I find my friend’s take on Jeffrey interesting. He is a controversial figure and I’m not sure I have ever heard anyone singing praises for Jeffrey in the same fashion as Lawrence.

After all, Jeffrey is one of those Sabah politicians demonised by many as a political frog – hopping from one party to another. That is true, of course. I think Jeffrey must have been in five or six parties before he finally formed his own Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (Star) in 2016.

To Lawrence, Jeffrey is a political fighter in every sense of the word.

“Jeffrey is not one to give up even when the chips are down. He has been through very rough times in politics, almost throughout his political career, in fact.

“Well, perhaps except for his short tenure as a deputy minister in Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s cabinet in the mid-1990s. Why, Jeffrey was even detained without trial under the infamous Internal Security Act on suspicion of plotting to secede Sabah from the federation of Malaysia...