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Question: In a recent interview with some newspapers, President Olusegun Obasanjo dismissed reports that he signed agreement with the North before he was voted into power. The President mentioned your name as one of the northern leaders who were part of the said agreement process. Can you avail us with what transpired at the meeting?

Answer: .... These were Alex Ekwueme, Don Etiebet, Jim Nwobodo, Francis Ellah, Graham Douglas, Phillip Asiodu and General Olusegun Obasanjo. All these men except President Olusegun Obasanjo were people with whom we founded the PDP. He came much later and joined the PDP and declared his interest in wanting to become the President. The northern group within the PDP backed different candidates. Incidentally, Ekwueme who had been the interim chairman of the PDP until that time was supported by very strong northern personalities. Adamu Ciroma, Asheik Jarma, who used to be the governor of Borno State, Lawal Kaita, a one-time governor of the old Kaduna State, Aminu Wali, who had contested election for governor in Kano state under the National Republican Convention (NRC), Garba Nadama, who was governor of Sokoto State, late Ali Baba who was at one-time the Minister for Internal Affairs under Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Audu Ogbeh. All of these and some other people supported Ekwueme. On Obasanjo's side, I was supporting him, Bamanga Tukur was supporting Obasanjo and so were Jubril Aminu, Iyorchia Ayu and Jerry Gana. It was decided that among these seven contestants getting in touch with the north, a committee should be formed to work out what were northern interests which they would require any of these candidates to support if they were seeking our support. As it turned out, they did a write up, which was later presented. I wasn't there and approved as what should be presented to the contestants and Aminu, Professor Jibril Aminu, was made to chair this committee. I did not have hands in the interviews of the gentlemen at all, but one evening, late evening, I went to see Bamanga Tukur at Hilton Hotel and as he was leading me out, we walked along one of the corridors and we heard some noise and he said Chief, some people are making noise here. He then opened the door and it turned out that there were some 12 young Northerners in there, and when we walked in further, we saw Olusegun Obasanjo sitting on a lowly chair and opposite him was Aminu Kano, with some of these 12 Northern chaps, sort of talking from a high table on him, even the arrangement of the table was a little bit disadvantageous to him, to Obasanjo, it wasn't deliberate and it was the most comfortable chair that they gave him, but there was a dining table on which these other ones were sitting and then talking down on him with the chairman, Professor Aminu on his left side and then they were talking and he was saying I will not sign, I cannot sign, Northerners are my friends, I have worked with them, in fact my first regime, they made it possible for me to be so successful and he named some of those who were his friends. For instance, he said he and Bamanga Tukur built the Tincan Island, on and on and on and on, so at one point, I said gentlemen, where is the document you want him to sign? Then they gave me the document and I browsed through, I browsed through and I said, I don't see anything objectionable in this document. He said well, if I signed the document, it means I have to take documents from Igbo, documents from Itsekiri, documents from Yorubas and sign. I said what is the problem, if people are going to give you their votes and they said they want certain things to be taken care of by you, you became president, you agree with them or you don't agree, but from what I see here, I do not see anything that a reasonable man will object to, and he said yes, I just don't want to sign because of my special relationship with the North. That is what Obasanjo said that day. Present at that meeting were Abba Dabo. Bashir Yusuf was the Secretary, then one Architect Mohammed from Kaduna, they were there, but Lawal Kaita was not present. We just chanced into the meeting. I didn't even know the meeting was holding. It was just accident, one of these accidents that tend to happen to this Obasanjo man. So remember Bamanga and I had decided to support him, then I said how many of the other contestants have signed, they said all of them have signed, so it turned out now that it is my candidate that has not signed. How do I save him from himself? So I said, give me a piece of paper, and they gave me a writing pad, and I wrote, "I so, so, so have seen and read the document you asked me to sign in the interest of the North or to preserve the interest of the North, I see nothing in the document which a reasonable man can object to."

That was my draft, but in my own case, in view of my special relationship with the North, please do not force me to sign, judge me on my past relationship with the North. I am speaking from memory now, but this was the import of the draft, but I remember clearly saying there was nothing in it that a reasonable man can object to. Then I handed it over to Jibril Aminu to say Chairman read this, then as he was about to read, I said no, give it to me, my handwriting is so bad, you will not be able to read it, and I remember he said you know you forget I am a medical doctor and we all laughed and he read it beautifully, and he handed it over to Obasanjo, Obasanjo read it through and then quibbled, because no matter what you draft for Obasanjo, he must try and have an input which is legitimate of course if he is going to sign or read the thing, so he quibbled about whether he should say a reasonable person or any reasonable person, I can't remember which one he chose now, then I said turn the document, you are supposed to sign and copy this my draft at the back of the document and sign it, and that was what Obasanjo did that day, he copied it and signed it personally. Now some of the younger chaps were taken aback, so one of them said let me see it, so he read it and looked at Obasanjo's signature and said no, he hasn't signed, he has merely initialed the document, and I said no he has signed, that is how Obasanjo signs, his signature bearing in mind is probably one of the most forgeable in this federation and I happened to know.

That is how he signed decrees when he was in power, that is his signature, not initials, then one other boy picked it up and said look sir, Ranka dei dei, he hasn't signed, I said he has signed, what more do you want, he has written an essay and signed the essay, saying you should judge him on the basis of his past relationship with the North, and I think that should be acceptable. He has written an essay, he has not just signed, he has written an essay at the back of your document and said take me on trust, I will be fair to you in the past, and then the temperature came down and that was how I saved him from himself, because if those chaps had, if I had not done what I did, and those young men had gone away to tell the whole world that he did not sign, if it was the will of God, I know he would be President, but our task to make him president would have been much, much, much difficult because Ekweme had very, very powerful support and I had no doubt in my mind that some of the younger men, it would have been impossible for me to hold them to continue to back Obasanjo. Now, that is the story of what happened. The document was taken away by Jibril Aminu, so he would have the document and I heard him on the Voice of America, Hausa service, saying, Yes, that the documents were not supposed to be made public at all, and that he was very sad and disappointed that it had been brought out in this form.

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2007: Obasanjo's Unsigned Pact with North - Hassan
From George Oji in Abuja

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As the debate over the direction of the Presi-dency in 2007 continues, former Minister of Mines and Power (1979-83) and Secretary of the Northern Caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Mohammed Hassan has disclosed that the North reached an understanding with President Olusegun Obasanjo that the presidency would return to the North in 2007.

Speaking with THISDAY in Abuja at the weekend, Hassan explained that the issue of power shift formed part of what he described as the "Compendium of Northern Interests" reached between Obasanjo and the North, which formed the basis for the North supporting Obasanjo's candidacy in 1999.

He explained that it was based on that agreement that the North did not field any presidential candidates for the 1999 presidential elections, and allowed all the seven candidates of the party ( President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Alex Ekwueme, Chief Philip Asiodu, Chief Francis Ellah, Chief Jim Nwobodo, Chief Don Etiebet and Chief Graham-Douglas) to come from the South.

Hassan, who later decamped from PDP and contested the 2003 gubernatorial election of Gombe State under the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) however admitted that Obasanjo refused to append his signature to the agreement.

"We invited him (Obasanjo) and handed the document to him as the basis for our support to him. He took pains to go through all our demands. To be frank with you, Obasanjo refused to sign the document. He said he had read the demands and was committed to them and also said there was no basis for signing the document. He said we should trust him that after all in 1978 when he was the military Head of State he made sure he protected Northern interests.

"He listed some of those interests to include the establishment of the Ajaokuta Steal company, concentration on agriculture and provision of fertilizers to Northern farmers, allocation of key Federal Ministers and Permanent Secretaries to the North, handing over to President Shehu Shagari etc.

"After he had spoken, we became convinced he would live up to his assurance and did not press for him to sign the document," Hassan recounted.

Hassan, Chairman of the AD 2004 Convention Committee named some of the key members of the Northern Caucus of PDP who reached the agreement with Obasanjo then to include, Alhaji Lawan Kaita, former governor of Katsina State (Chairman), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Professor Jubril Aminu, Cheif Barnabas Gemade, Mallam Ali Ciroma, Brigd. David Jemibowon (rtd), Alhaji Aminu Wali, Alhaji Ahmed A. Hassan, Senator Yussuf Mohammed and Alhaji Ibrahim Bunu.

Others include Alhaji Mohammed Bello Kirifi, Senator Bala Tafida (late), Alhaji Shaba Lafiaji, Senator Isaiah Balat, Chief Gabriel Adukwu etc.

Said Hassan, "The zoning of the presidency to the south was done in order to be fair and just between the north and south, the north having enjoyed the national leadership for years. It was also fashioned to ensure peaceful co-existence and mutual respect between the south and north.

"The zoning was not done to favour any particular geo-political area within the six geo-political zones. It was up to the particular zone, north or south to decide which geo-political region to produce the president, pending on the outcome of the election convention. So all party men and women all over the country had a say in the final election of the presidential candidate. The essence was to make it democratic and the candidate would not see his selection as tribal, regional or even zonal, but national.

"These were the underlying principles under which the zoning was done. After 2007, the presidency would be zoned to the north, it would remain in the north until after two terms when it will go back to the south. That was why in 1999 we allowed seven aspirants from the south alone to go for the presidency.

"Deliberately, we denied the northern aspirants, who included Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Jubril Aminu, Bamanga Tukur, Abubakar Rimi, Professor Ango Abdullahi and Barnabas Gemade from contesting the primaries.

"For any southern politician to think about contesting the presidential elections in 2007 is deceiving himself and betraying the PDP. The best they can do is to mobilise and assist the northern aspirants with a view to bargaining for the Vice Presidency and other patronages."

Some other demands contained in the said document "Compendium of Northern Interest," according to Hassan were that, "In allocating ministries to the ministers, traditional ministries in the hands of the north should remain so. These ministries include Defence, Security, FCT, Internal Affairs, Agriculture and Water Resources, Mines, Power and Steel, Petroleum, other Service Chiefs etc.

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