Isn’t it amazing? Every time that it seems that things can’t get any more inane or insane in Umno/BN’s version - or rather perversion of Malaysia - the situation suddenly gets even more ridiculous. As it did last week courtesy of Prime and alleged Crime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who claimed that the Al Jazeera’s resurrection of the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder story is part of a ‘foreign plot’ to topple him the way that the US did for Saddam Hussein.

Reminding his hard-core loyalist audience at the Pekan Umno division meeting that Saddam was deposed by the United States and its allies on false claims that he had and intended to use weapons of mass destruction, Najib alleged that there is a similar conspiracy afoot ‘from the top to the bottom and inside and outside the country’ against him and his Umno/BN regime.

Not that anyone has accused Najib of having weapons of mass destruction, Saddam style, unless you count C4 explosive and a couple of over-priced Scorpene submarines. But he’s most certainly got plenty of weapons of mass distraction and deception in his arsenal, and he’s employing them with all his might.

By weapons of mass distractions of course I’m referring to the thousands of so-called red shirts he and his regime bused-in to KL last Wednesday, presumably at public expense, to try and divert Malaysians’ attention from the previous week’s Bersih 4 rally of citizens urging clean elections, an end to political corruption as in the massive 1MDB scandal, and Najib’s resignation on the grounds that nobody believes his ‘donation’ alibi for the RM2.6 billion that mysteriously appeared in, and just as mysteriously shortly after disappeared from, one of his personal bank accounts.

But to judge from subsequent reactions to the rally by his weapons of mass distraction, it might have hurt rather than helped him. Just as his weapons of mass deception, the nation’s entire complex of regime-apologist news media and paid cyber-liars, don’t appear to be working either, having long ago lost every shred of credibility they might once have had with any Malaysian with even half a brain.

Nor will the latest Umno/BN weapon of mass deception that is apparently soon to be deployed, a series of giant video screens designed to confront the populace with the regime’s version of reality.

Like pretty well everything Najib and his accomplices do these days, the screens will likely achieve nothing but screams from citizens that are sick to death of witnessing so much of their own public money squandered on feeding them a pack of lies.

Provoking paranoia

In any case, despite Najib’s strenuous attempts to provoke paranoia about plots against Malaysia, there is no conspiracy, international or otherwise, against him or his crooked government.

Just perfectly responsible investigation of alleged money-laundering and other financial wrongdoing by agencies around the world responsible for combatting such crimes in their own jurisdictions, and free media doing their duty to investigate such crimes and expose the criminals responsible for them.

Last week I recall suggesting that the vast majority of honest, fair-minded Malaysian citizens, besides protesting in every possible way against Najib and his entire armoury of weapons of mass distraction and deception, could well consider getting together to bring a class action against Najib and ministers and other members of his regime for restitution of the countless billions that Umno/BN has stolen from the people over the past several decades.

But whether or not this was a worthwhile suggestion, I’m delighted to see that a member of Umno, Anina Saadudin, has taken the fight to Najib by filing an application for a court injunction to freeze Najib’s personal assets , including his house, and to require him to disclose the entire extent of his assets both in Malaysia and overseas.

This latest move by Anina follows her earlier filing of a lawsuit over the RM2.6 billion that the Wall Street Journal originally revealed had ‘mysteriously’ arrived in one of Najib’s personal accounts.

Following this, it was claimed that the amount had been sent to Najib by a still-unidentified Middle-Eastern donor as a token of thanks for his efforts to oppose Islamic State (IS), though nobody I know is aware of any such anti-IS efforts by Najib, and Umno summarily terminated Anina’s party membership, a move that she is currently challenging.

Of course many of us can’t help suspecting that Anina is not, as it appears, acting alone, but is in fact part of a conspiracy. But if so the conspiracy would not be the international one that Najib falsely claims to be happening, but a very local one on the part of an Umno faction not entirely unrelated to Najib’s most outspoken opponent, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

But as far as I’m concerned, who cares? As long as somebody, somehow finally topples Najib, there’s a good chance of bringing down the entire rotten Umno/BN regime with him. And the fall of this gang of crooks, along with its entire stock of weapons of mass distraction and deception, will surely, around the world as in Malaysia, receive a delighted mass reception.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.