PESHAWAR, Jan 4: NWFP Governor Lt-Gen (retd) Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai has sent his resignation to President Pervez Musharraf.

“He sent his resignation to President Musharraf through a special messenger on Thursday evening,” credible sources told Dawn.

And a notification issued here on Friday evening said that Owais Ghani, the Governor of Balochistan, has been nominated to succeed Mr Aurakzai. He is expected to take up his new assignment in a couple of days.

The sources declined to say why Gen Aurakzai had decided to quit the office.

It was also not clear whether Governor Aurakzai decided to resign on his volition or he was asked to step down.

Speculations regarding Mr Aurakzai’s likely departure from the Governor’s House have been doing the round for some time.

There was no word from the Governor’s House where Mr Aurakzai spent a busy day conducting official business and chairing staff meetings.

A phone attendant at the Governor’s House said that Mr Aurakzai was not available.

Mr Aurakzai, who became the Governor of NWFP in May, 2004, was the chief architect of the controversial Sept 5, 2006, agreement between government and militants in the restive North Waziristan Agency. But the agreement came under a lot of criticism at home and abroad with some analysts calling it a total capitulation to the militants while others pointed out a lack of an effective monitoring system to ensure its implementation in letter and spirit.

US National Intelligence Estimate in July last year expressed its concern over Al Qaeda rebuilding “safe havens” in the tribal region.

Even President Bush, who seemed to have been convinced by his Pakistani counterpart, said in a radio address later that “President Musharraf recognises that the agreement has not been successful or well-enforced and is taking active steps to correct it.”

But some government officials say that Mr Aurakzai was facing an uphill task trying to revive the defunct peace agreement, scrapped by militants in July, accusing the government of violating its terms.

He was also facing problems in trying to implement a deal reached with top militant commander Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan.

The deal brokered by a tribal jirga led to the release of 242 army soldiers in the first week of November after having been held hostage by militants since August 31, 2007.

In return, officials and tribal interlocutors said, the government had pledged to release 30 militants. Twenty-five of the militants, two of them convicted by courts in terrorism-related cases, were swapped for the army hostages.

However, the deal fell through when, according to tribal interlocutors, the government reneged on its words to release the remaining five militants.

“There were problems with the release of those five men,” said a senior government official familiar with the issue. “We could not have released them.”

The issue assumed such a proportion that the additional chief secretary, Fata, Javed Iqbal, Secretary Security (Fata) Arbab Mohammad Arif and Political Agent, South Waziristan, Hussainzada Khan sought to be relieved. All the three officers have now been replaced.

Official sources said that Governor Aurakzai had asked the tribal jirga to let him make another effort to resolve the standoff and promised to return with an answer by December 24.

The problem, however, has not been solved. But it is not clear whether it was this singular issue which prompted Mr Aurakzai to put in his resignation.

Kurram tribal region also saw one of its worst sectarian clashes in recent times and there was some criticism of Mr Aurakzai’s handling of Fata.

Quetta: The provincial capital remained in grip of rumours on Friday about the replacement of Balochistan Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani. “Yes. We have heard such rumours, but Islamabad has not sent any massage to the provincial government in this regard,” a senior official of the Balochistan government said.

Sources said that in case Mr Ghani was appointed governor of the NWFP, Balochistan High Court Chief Justice Amanullah Yasinzai would work as acting governor till a new governor is appointed after the Feb 18 elections.—Saleem Shahid