Wilfred Madius Tangau

Datuk Seri Panglima Wilfred Madius Tangau (born 13 March 1958) is a Malaysian politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tuaran from November 1999 to March 2008 and again since May 2013.

Tangau was born in 1958 in Kampung Lokos, Kiulu, Tuaran, Sabah, into a Kadazandusun family where his parents were cultivators of hill paddy.

He is the fourth child of 14 siblings.

Upon completing his primary school education at SRK Lokos, Kiulu in 1970, he was determined to continue his education despite initial objections from his parents due to financial constraints.

With his own savings, he enrolled in SMK Kiulu (now known as SMK Tun Fuad Stephens) for Bridge Class to Form Two.

To support himself in school, he took up a manual job as a rubber tapper on weekends.

He was also employed by a Chinese “towkay”, a term for business owners, in Kiulu town, which at that time only had a row of shops.

He then could save on food and rental.

He often speaks of his childhood fondly:

"At the age of just 13, students from my village Lokos would walk to our secondary school in Kiulu every two weeks or so. We would depart at 6am from my village and arrive at our school at 6pm, carrying food supplies, mainly rice. As a young undergraduate from UPM, I would walk for four hours from Nabalu town to Lokos. Generally the people from my village are from poor families without a regular source of income as they survived on subsistence farming."

At the end of Form Two he was awarded a Boarding Scholarship from the Sabah State Government to further his studies in SMK Ranau in Form Three in 1974.

With the good results he obtained in the Lower Certificate of Education (LCE) he was granted a Sabah State Government Scholarship to pursue his supper secondary at Setapak High School, Kuala Lumpur.

Inspired by fellow schoolmates in this school, he initiated a student society in his village called KEPALOS, which formed student study groups and fundraised to finance their programmes.

In 1976, Tangau passed his Malaysian Certificate of Education (MCE) with Grade One.

With this he earned the same scholarship to do his Form Six at Sekolah Menengah Sains Selangor (SMSS) Cheras, a governmental fully residential school.

Whilst schooling there, he was an active student leader and a debater for his school.

Prior to his tertiary education while waiting for the results of his Higher School Certificate, he served as a temporary teacher at SMK Tamparuli, Tuaran, Sabah, for five months.

He taught Integrated Science or Sains Paduan to Form One students.

In 1979, having successfully completed his Higher School Certificate, Tangau was accepted into University Pertanian Malaysia (UPM), Serdang Selangor, to do his bachelor's degree in Forestry Science.

He was an active student leader at university.

He was the President of the Catholic Student Society for two terms from 1981 to 1982.

He was also a keen observer of the political development of his birth state Sabah, and nationwide.

He graduated in 1983 and soon after, he secured a job at the Sabah Forestry Development Authority (SAFODA) as a research officer on silviculture.

In 1985 he was accepted as an individual participant to study forest management in various institutions in Japan under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for four months.

He had the opportunity to travel and stay in Tokyo, Kumamoto, Numata, Hokkaido and Tsukuba.

Upon returning to Sabah in 1985 he assisted Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) as a backroom boy to form the new Sabah government.

Subsequently, in 1990 he obtained a master's degree in Development Management from Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in the Philippines.

He joined the newly set up Institute for Development Studies (IDS) Sabah as a research associate, and served for nine years until 1994.

When BN toppled PBS in 1994, Tangau assisted leaders who left the party to form Parti Demokratik Sabah (PDS).

For the next five years Tangau served as the Chief Executive Officer at the Institute for Indigenous Economic Progress (INDEP) Sabah, a think-tank set established by PDS.

The objective of INDEP was to engage Pasokmomogun community groups in Sabah in policymaking and assist UPKO leaders in decision-makings.

Tangau was appointed as Chairman of several federal agencies and state linked companies such as Sabah Cultural Board (LKNS, Forest Plantation Development Sdn. Bhd., Malaysian Timber Industrial Board (MTIB) and Asian Supply Sdn. Bhd.(ASB) Tangau was also on the board of Suria Capital Berhad, Sabah Energy Corporation Sdn. Bhd.

In the 1999 state elections in Sabah, 10 of the 12 PDS candidates who contested were defeated.

Due to this devastating defeat Tangau was requested by the party leadership to contest in the 1999 parliamentary general election, effectively thrusting him from backroom boy to mainstream politics.

Tangau was elected as the Member of Parliament for Tuaran for the first time in November 1999 and again in 2004.

He is married to Datuk (Datin Seri Panglima) Dr. Jaina Sintian, a medical doctor from Bundu Tuhan village, Ranau, who is the founding Vice Chief of the UPKO Women Movement Chief (UPKO Wanita, later the Chief 2008 and retired in 2018 when the husband was elected officially as the President of UPKO. Together they have five children - four daughters, and a son.

Shortly after graduating from UPM, Tangau was sent to Japan for a four-month training stint in various research institutions.

He served as the Deputy Chief Minister and State Minister of Trade and Industry of Sabah in the Sabah Heritage Party (WARISAN) state administration from May 2018 to the collapse of the WARISAN administration in September 2020, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation from July 2015 to May 2018.

He is a member of the United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation (UPKO), a component party of the PH coalition.

He has served as the Honorary President of UPKO since January 2023, 2nd President of UPKO from March 2014 to January 2023, when he served in the official capacity from September 2018 to January 2023 and acting capacity from March 2014 following the resignation of Bernard Giluk Dompok to his official assumption of UPKO presidency in September 2018.