His stated goal is to assert the Philippine territorial claim to eastern Sabah as part of the North Borneo dispute.

After several negotiations with the group by the Philippine and Malaysian governments to reach a peaceful solution were unsuccessful, the standoff escalated into an armed conflict which ended with 56 followers of the self-proclaimed sultanate dead and the rest captured by the Malaysian authorities.

Before this incident, Malaysia continued to pay an annual cession payment amounting to roughly $1,000 to the indirect heirs of the Sultan honoring an 1878 agreement, where North Borneo – today’s Sabah – was conceded by the Sultan of Sulu to a British company.

[12][13] Years later, eight of these Sulu heirs, who insisted they were not involved in the 2013 standoff, hired lawyers to pursue legal action based on the original commercial deal.

[15] As in other districts of Sabah, there are a significant number of illegal immigrants from the nearby southern Philippines, mainly from the Sulu Archipelago and Mindanao, many of whom are not included in the population statistics.