London (UK) – 23 April 2011 – The Times - Beneath a dilapidated shack Frank Ofori leaps casually into the entrance of a crumbling mineshaft that plunges 200ft into the earth.

With a torch strapped to his head and three sticks of dynamite in his back pocket he begins a ten-hour shift underground in the Kenyase mine camp, 200 miles (320km) north of Accra, where thousands of prospectors risk their lives in the hope of finding gold.

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LESS than 24 hours from today, on Saturday, April 16, Nigeria will hold its fourth presidential election since the Fourth Republic began and it is billed to be the most competitive so far. Not only that, in spite of  faltering start, Nigeria’s 2011 general elections have been so far roundly hailed as relatively the most credible in the country since the world’s largest black nation returned to democracy 12 years ago.

Ensuring the integrity of Nigeria’s elections is crucial to the future of democracy in Africa, especially coming in the year that some 19 presidential elections were on the cards. Laurent Gbagbo had to be arrested to involuntarily concede his obvious defeat, the people of two North African  nations had to force out their ‘elected’ dictators. In the meantime, the battle to introduce multiparty democracy to Libya is raging violently without any clear indication which direction the missiles of resistance from both sides of the struggle may drop.

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In 1956, France implemented a series of institutional reforms that effectively allowed its African colonies to opt for integration with France instead of pursuing autonomous existence as independent states. Just two years later, France, under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle, offered the colonies, under the auspices of the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic, free association as autonomous republics within the Communauté française (French Community). Guinea was the only territory in France’s so-called Afrique noire to vote “Non” to de Gaulle’s proposal. Ivory Coast voted “Oui” as its elites saw Guinea’s total rejection of de Gaulle’s offer as not very pragmatic. Of course, within the new community, France would retain senior status and the former colonies would come in as junior partners.

Nevertheless, leaders of the Francophone African colonies soon realized that they could opt for independence and still retain close and productive ties with France. Thus, following the lead of the former UN Trust Territory of Cameroons under French administration, which gained independence on January 1, 1960, Ivory Coast withdrew from the French Community and on August 7, 1960, declared its independence. However, it was not until October 31, 1960 that the National Assembly adopted a constitutional draft.

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