KOTA KINABALU, April 29 -- Tambunan Assemblyman Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan called on the Government to drop the term "negeri" for Sabah, saying Sabah is a founding partner of Malaysia and not on the same level as the peninsular states.

"Sabah, together with Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore formed Malaysia as equal partners and should be recognised accordingly as a territory of equal standing with Malaya, not just a state within a federation," he said when debating the Head of State Policy Speech.

He pointed to the 2021 Federal constitutional amendment to Article 1(2), through which the Federal Government acknowledged that the amendment was to restore Sabah and Sarawak's status as territories equal in standing with Malaya in the formati...