As leaders of her former colonies converge for a Commonwealth summit, Queen Elizabeth II was to visit a mock-up Nigerian village populated by actors playing villagers, coming as close to ordinary people of this country as she's likely to because of security concerns.

　　The 72-year-old British monarch's virtual-Africa tour yesterday falls on the eve of the opening of the 52-nation summit, with organizers struggling to keep sanctions against Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe from dominating the agenda and dividing Commonwealth leaders.

　　Elizabeth and Prince Philip opened their two-day state visit on Wednesday, marking the queen's first return to Nigeria since 1956.

　　Elizabeth then was only four yearssintosher reign, and Nigeria, then Britain's most populous remaining colony, was still four years away from independence.

　　Her first visit lasted far longer than this one - 20 days. Her husband went surfing then, and the young queen "adopted" - or sponsored - a 10-year-old leper girl.

　　"Queen Elizabeth mingled with hundreds of lepers today and found them all cheerful," an AP report from that first trip said.

　　On this visit, time constraints and security concerns were to limit the queen's contact with working-class Nigerians to a walk yesterday through a mock village constructed by the British Broadcasting Corp.

　　The village at Karu, 32 kilometers east of the capital, Abuja, is the set of a BBC radio soap opera, with its plot set in a Nigerian market.

　　Local traders have been allowed to set up stalls for the occasion, but will be kept 100 meters back, authorities say.The radio actors would be allowed to meet the queen, but it was unclear whether the market-sellers would come within range.

　　Prince Philip was slated to visit health and environment projects yesterday in the sprawling commercial capital of Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa's most crowded city.

　　President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose 1999 election ended 15 years of military rule and Nigeria's ostracism by the Commonwealth, welcomed the British royal couple on Wednesday.

　　British Prime Minister Tony Blair was among government leaders due to arrive yesterday.

　　The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting of Britain and its former colonies runs through Sunday.

　　The ambitious agenda calls for promoting development and democracy in some of the world's most impoverished and troubled nations.