Stephens, now a Datuk, claimed that he was not
consulted upon with regard to the booting out of Singapore and he should
had been consulted since he was the Federal Minister for Sabah Affair.
Together with Peter Mojuntin, the Secretary General of United Pasok
Momogun Kadazan Organization (UPKO),
he toured the state telling the people that Sabah should re-examine the
Twenty Points, the conditions of Sabah’s entry into Malaysia.
Recalcitrance in Sabah was the least that the Tunku wanted because
during this period, the Konfrontasi was ongoing, the Tunku was afraid
that this might give President Sukarno of Indonesia, the excuse to step
in and annex Sabah into Indonesia.
There was also speculation that Stephens was going
to pull Sabah out of Malaysia and link up with Singapore. If this
happened, Sarawak would had followed suit. Hence on 13 September 1965,
the Tunku flew into Jesselton and fired Stephesn as Federal Minister for
Sabah Affair and Civil Defence. This, the Tunku hoped, would limit his
activity in state level. At the same time, the Tunku was already
thinking of ways to neutralize Stephens and Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun
became his prime candidate. Tun Mustapha was in Tunku’s opinion, the
only politician in Sabah with the stature to challenge Stephens. During
this time, Tun Mustapha was still the Head of State.(4)
The Tunku encouraged Tun Mustapha to re-enter
politic. Tun Mustapha was initially reluctant but agreed later when
Tunku agreed to his requests for a fair degree of autonomy, logistical
and economical assistance from the federal government and the help of a
politically trained lawyer. Three days later, Tun Mustapha stepped down
as Head of State to challenge Stephens in the incoming first election of
an independent Sabah. Syed Kechik was sent to Sabah to help Tun
Mustapha to neutralize Stephens.(5)
Syed Kechik engineered the coup to get Datuk Donald
Stephens to step down as President of UPKO and retire from politic. He
was also to convince UPKO members to force Peter Mojuntin into
retirement and that his paper, The Sabah Times would run articles
suggesting that USNO
and UPKO should merge in the interest of bumiputra unity. In the book,
The Politics of Federalism, it insinuated that Tun Mustapha would have
sought alternative arrangement to save the face of a long-standing
colleague. A passage from the book aptly described the situation, “The
two were unwitting actors in a drama written by the federal government,
and both felt compelled to play out their roles, however reluctantly”.
The book further went on to say that had the encounter was between
Stephens and other parties in the Sabah Alliance, he would have emerged
unscathed, given his powers of articulation and pursuasion but this
encounter was with Kuala Lumpur(6)
