It appears that President Osman did not select Abdullahi Issa or Mohamed Egal for three reasons. First, Osman and Issa both hailed from the Hiran region. Therefore, choosing Issa as prime minister was not politically feasible in a democracy. Second, President Os- man thought that because Issa had been prime minister for the previous four years of the trusteeship period it was time to give others a chance. Third, the pres- ident had little knowledge of Egal

Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, loc. 513