COLUMBUS - An Ohio State University professor who also is a native of Nigeria leaves Friday for his fifth trip to oversee elections in Bosnia, continuing his crusade for democracy and peace there.

Okey Onyejekwe (O-kee On-yeh-JEK-way), director of the Center for African Studies, is part of an international team supervising the April 8 parliamentary elections mandated by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accord. He supervised elections in Bosnia in 1995 and 1998, and twice in 1997.

The U.S. State Department and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the group organizing the elections, selected Onyejekwe for the position. An associate professor of journalism and political science in the Department of African-American and African Studies, he has written position papers for the State Department on U.S. policies in Africa and on the process of democratization.

"Our plans now are to work with the Bosnians. When you have major ethnic conflicts, you need outsiders to nudge the democratic process along. But there is a limit to how much you can get involved," says Onyejekwe. "We will continue to work as election observers, but we hope they will need fewer supervisors, which have a more hands-on role."

While Onyejekwe expects to face many of the same obstacles he encountered in earlier supervisory trips - land mines and a heavily armed citizenry - he also hopes to find signs that the Bosnians are ready to take charge of the election process and also take the lead in becoming a democratic society.

As an election supervisor, Onyejekwe will work with local elections officials to make sure voting rules are followed, determine voter eligibility, resolve disputes and oversee accountability and ballot security.

In 1994, Onyejekwe served as a United Nations election observer for South Africa's first multiracial elections.

A native of Nigeria, Onyejekwe says he knows well the kinds of challenges facing Bosnians. "I know from Nigeria in the late `60s and early `70s, that it takes a lot of outsiders to help make it easier for people to talk to each other," he says. "But it is a balancing act. While people appreciate the help, they don't want you to dictate. They want assistance but resent it at the same time."

Reporters can arrange interviews by calling Amy Murray at (614) 292-8385.

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