Ahmad Zaidi Adruce

He was adopted by descendents of Syarif Masahor (a Rajang basin chief that opposed Brooke rule from 1860 to 1862).

Sharifah Mai was a daughter of Syarif Masahor.

She has a unmarried daughter named Sharifah Dayang Aisah who later adopted Ahmad Zaidi.

Sharifah Mai also has a childless son named Wan Abu Bakar Adruce.

Ahmad Zaidi Adruce was married to Hjh Hamsiah Bte Hj Ismail (born 22 November 1923) and had eight children.

During his exile in Indonesia, he later married Toh Puan Datuk Patinggi Hajjah Rosmiati Kendati, and had four more children.

At 5 years old, he was sent to two schools, Chung Hua and also Abang Ali in Sibu, where he developed interest in poetry, gymnastic and acting.

At age 12 he passed his standard seven exam with exemplary marks – which at the time was an achievement far beyond what was expected of a young man born and raised in Sarawak.

Ahmad Zaidi was an exceptionally bright student, who was always either first or second in class throughout his primary and secondary education.

Ahmad Zaidi Adruce bin Muhammed Noor (29 March 1924 – 5 December 2000) was a Malaysian politician who served as the 5th Yang di-Pertua Negeri (Governor) of Sarawak.

Ahmad Zaidi was born on 29 March 1924 to Muhammad Noor (father) and Siti Saadiah (mother) on a small boat on the Rajang River near Kampung Semop, Daro, Sarawak.

His father was a farmer while his mother was a housewife.

After his standard seven exam, he moved to Kuching to further his studies and joined St. Thomas school in 1936, where he graduated with a Junior Cambridge qualification in 1938.

Out of 63 students, he was among the seven who passed – and of the seven, Ahmad Zaidi was the only bumiputera.

He joined an Anglo-Chinese school in Singapore in 1938 and graduated in 1939 at 15 years old with a Cambridge School Certificate, and was at the time the only bumiputera to have achieved such an honour.

In November 1940, Ahmad Zaidi joined the Sultan Idris College in Tanjung Malim, Perak, where he studied until the Japanese invasion in 1941, when he was forced to flee to Singapore.

In 1942 he was sent to Java to study Veterinary Medicine at Buitenzorg College in Bogor.

He did not complete his veterinary training when the war ended in 1945 and was instead pulled into fighting against the Dutch in Indonesia, where he witnessed first-hand the early days of the Indonesian National Revolution.

In 1947, he returned to Sarawak where he was then appointed as a teacher at Batu Lintang Training Center.

During that year he also set up the first Sea Scout movement in Borneo and took his students sailing as far as Tanjung Datu on the western tip of Borneo Island and as far north to the Saribas River, an enterprise that would later help him establish an intelligence and underground movement to assist the Republic of Indonesia in their guerilla warfare against the Dutch.

In 1949, the British awarded Ahmad Zaidi a four-year Colonial Development and Welfare scholarship to further his studies at the Robert Gordons Technical College in Aberdeen before he was enrolled to the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom.

On 28 May 1953, he was invited to represent Sarawakian students to attend the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II where he also met with Temenggong Jugah.

Ahmad Zaidi secured his MA degree in Political Economy in 1953 from the University of Edinburgh and later secured a Certificate in Education from the University of London in 1955.

Upon his return to Sarawak, he was promoted to the post of supervisor at a training college and later became the acting president of the Barisan Pemuda Sarawak in 1956 which was an organisation that united the bumiputeras to work towards the independence of Sarawak.

He met with Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie and later with Tunku Abdul Rahman to support the movement towards the formation of Malaysia.

Ahmad Zaidi Adruce had a turbulent political career.

His involvement in politics began in earnest while he was studying at Buitenzorg College (Current Bogor Agricultural University) in Bogor, then Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies (present-day Indonesia).

Ahmad Zaidi was opposed to colonialist ideology, and the experiences of being discriminated while in the United Kingdom did little to endear his feelings towards the colonial government that ruled over his people.

The buildup for the movement towards independence had become so intense that there were even plots to either arrest or assassinate Ahmad Zaidi for being a very public rebel to the colonial government.

He knew that at that stage even if Sarawak was able to attain independence, the machineries for the new Malaysian government will mostly be influenced by those Sarawakians who had worked for the colonial government.

In the transition phase towards the formation of a new government, he received insider information that some of the expatriates who worked under the colonial administration preferred that he be eliminated for fear of revenge if Ahmad Zaidi became in control.

He was dubbed a traitor by British authorities and supporters including many of the expatriates in the Sarawak government because of his strong influence and involvement in Barisan Pemuda Sarawak and suspected connection with Indonesia during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation.

He was then abducted from Sarawak by his sympathizers and later went into self-exile in Indonesia until he was given amnesty by the Malaysian government in 1969, a move strongly supported by Tun Abdul Rahman Ya'kub, where the latter was a federal minister at the time.

After exiled for six months in Jakarta, Indonesia, Ahmad Zaidi was convinced that his troubles had died down.

On 12 May 1969, he telephoned Normah Abdullah, the wife of chief minister of Sarawak at that time, Abdul Rahman Ya'kub to go back to Kuala Lumpur.

However, Normah warned Ahmad Zaidi of brewing racial riots in Kuala Lumpur.

The racial riots later developed into 13 May incident.

Ahmad Zaidi returned to Kuching, Sarawak instead.

He was the longest-serving governor in consecutive terms from a single appointment, from his inaugural in 1985, to his death in 2000.

He was also remembered as the first Sarawakian Bumiputera to receive a MA Degree from a British university (University of Edinburgh).