Whereas most AOF territories thus provided for relatively liberal grant of nationality at independence, Côte d’Ivoire, the most highly developed economy of AOF and the recipient of the greatest number of migrant workers to the new cocoa and coffee plantations, adopted rules that made it difficult for these migrants to be recognised as Ivorian. Although there were transitional provisions allowing those resident in the country to acquire nationality, the Ivorian nationality code did not incorporate the double jus soli rule for those born after independence; and although the law allowed children under eighteen born in Côte d’Ivoire of foreign parents to acquire Ivorian nationality “by declaration” if they had lived in Côte d’Ivoire for more than five years, this right was little used and was suppressed in 1972. Nationality of origin was attributed only to persons with one parent who was a national, rather than including any jus soli element.19 (See also the box in section 4.1.) Guinea was also a partial exception to the general rules, thanks to its earlier exit from French nationality, when it rejected membership of the Communauté française in 1958. The transitional provisions did not establish explicit rules relating to those who became Guinean at independence; and even the date of entry into force of the new nationality code was not clear.20 However, the new national law was largely based on the French model, and had a strong emphasis on rights derived from birth in the territory. As a UN trust territory, Togo was already recognised as having its own nationality at the time of the creation of the Communauté française; however, it only adopted a law regulating nationality more than a year after the dissolution of the French community.21 The law followed the French model quite closely, as in the case of Guinea emphasising a jus soli attribution of nationality.22 In the former Portuguese colonies, most of the new national constitutions and political regimes were given a socialist content when independence was attained following the 1974 collapse of the Estado Novo in Portugal. Nonetheless, the lusophone countries kept Portugal’s civil law system, maintaining much of Portuguese colonial legislation, including the framework of the provisions on nationality that had been applied in the metropolitan territories. Some countries also voted for rules favouring the grant of nationality to those who had fought against the Portuguese and penalising those who had collaborated with the colonial regime. For example, in Guinea Bissau the law provided that any person who had fought for the liberation of the republic became a national on the date of independence.23 Though gender discrimination was a common feature of the laws adopted at the time of independence in West Africa — as it was in the 1950s and 1960s in most European states — formal equality between races and ethnic groups was the norm. In some cases, however, new laws reversed the system of discrimination, excluding members of certain ethnic groups. In West Africa, this remains the case in Liberia and Sierra Leone; while in Mali preferential treatment is given to persons of African origin; and in Nigeria the constitutional provisions on membership of an “indigenous community” create a strong element of ethnic discrimination (see further below, section 2.6.3). 2.4. Trends since independence West Africa, in common with the rest of the continent, and indeed the rest of the world, has seen two particularly strong trends in modifications to nationality laws since independence: these are a 19 Articles 6, 7, 17-23 and 105 of the Code de la nationalité 1961. Decottignies and de Biéville Les nationalités africaines, entry on Guinea, p.153. 21 Loi No.61-18 du 25 juillet 1961. 22 Decottignies and de Biéville Les nationalités africaines, entries on Cameroon and Togo. 23 Guiné Bissau, Lei da nacionalidade 1976, art.1(c). 20 11