The New ‘Sultan of Sulu’

                         Datu Mohd Akjan bin Datu Ali Muhammad,

                                 The New ‘Sultan of Sulu’

In the first week of February 2011 a local Sabahan sub-contractor and businessman Datu Mohd Akjan bin Datu Ali Muhammad, was declared as the real ‘Sultan of Sulu’ at a ceremony in Kota Kinabalu. The event was witnessed by 60 representatives from the various Tausug communities of Tawi-Tawi, Palawan, Sulu and Sabah. With the proclamation of Datu Akjan as the reigning Sultan of Sulu with the title Sultan Paduka Mahasari Maulana al-Marhum Sultan Shariful-Hashim II, the Sulu ‘government’ officially relinquished its claims to Sabah. The rationale was that since the 1970s the Malaysian government had been kind to Sulu exiles who fled from the Philippines.

Immediately after the proclamation, local politicians from East Malaysia raised the question of how a Malaysian citizen could unilaterally declare himself as the sovereign of another country. The former Sabah chief minister Yong Teck Lee of the Sabah Progressive Party urged the Malaysian government to clarify the matter, citing the allegations against Mohd Akjan and stating that he had once been allegedly detained for fabricating identity cards in Sabah.

The former chief minister also noted that it was highly irregular to have a Malaysian citizen proclaim himself to be the Sultan of a separate state and head of a foreign government-in-exile, and not to pledge loyalty to the King of Malaysia and the Malaysian constitution. Other Sabah politicians including former senator Chong Eng Leong also added that this recent development might contribute to more foreigners coming to settle in Sabah.