ABSTRACT
Africa has experienced a number of popular struggles for reform, from autocratic forms of government to more democratic political orders. An important tradition that needs to accompany this democratic trend is the rule of law. The legal traditions of virtually all Anglophone African countries today have been shaped, in part, by the British colonial experience. The judicial arrangement in many of these countries also provides for African customary law and, in some cases, for Islamic law. Both Kenya and Nigeria, for example, have this tripartite legal structure that reflects a heritage drawn from its indigenous tradition, Islamic legacy, and Western influence. In sum, as long as the country maintained an English-only policy in the official domain under a constitutional dispensation that was replete with serious shortcomings, successive regimes could refrain from translating the constitution and making it more accessible to the wider public.
