news

Special Invitation To Dine With PM Muhyiddin Leaves Veveonah Smiling

The Sabahan student described the premier as a "humble and amazing person".

Cover image via @vevemacho (Instagram)

After being accused by two deputy ministers of pretending to take an online examination on a tree for popularity, Veveonah Mosibin was invited to have dinner with Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin

According to New Straits Times, the 18-year-old Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) student shared a meal together with the premier on Saturday night, 12 September.

During the dinner, Veveonah took a selfie with Muhyiddin, where both of them can be seen smiling while gesturing with an L-sign under their chins.

"Stay awesome! It was such an honour for me and my parents to be invited to have dinner with Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, the eighth Prime Minister of Malaysia," she shared on Instagram yesterday, 13 September.

"He is such a humble and amazing person. Thank you so much, Tan Sri."

This is the second time Veveonah received a visit from government officials following the accusation

On Thursday, 10 September, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MOSTI) Minister Khairy Jamaluddin personally visited Veveonah to apologise to her on behalf of the government.

Khairy said he visited the student at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), located in Kota Kinabalu.

"Had a meeting with Veveonah at UMS. I have apologised to her and her parents on behalf of the government," he wrote in a tweet.

"I also have suggested for [Veveonah] to work with Yayasan Inovasi Malaysia in developing innovation projects in environmental conservation at her village."

In the post, Khairy also shared a few photos of him with Veveonah and her parents.

The two deputy ministers who made the accusation were Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin and Deputy Finance Minister I Datuk Abdul Rahim Bakri

Last week, the duo took to Dewan Negara and Facebook respectively to call out Veveonah for being an "attention-seeker".

However, they quickly retracted their comments after the UMS Board of Directors confirmed that Veveonah was indeed sitting for an exam during the filming of the video, which was posted on 13 June.

The video, titled '24 Hours On Tree', has garnered over 830,000 views on YouTube at the time of writing.

Zahidi had on the same day made a formal apology to the student, while Rahim had taken down his erroneous Facebook post.

Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin.

Image via Rohanis Shukri/New Straits Times

Read more about the controversy here:

You may be interested in: