By Abdul Tejan-Cole
On July 1, Senegalese authorities announced the seizure of 798kg of cocaine hidden in bags loaded in 15 Renault cars onboard the Italian vessel Grimaldi’s ro-ro GRANDE NIGERIA at the port of Dakar.
The boat had travelled from the port of Paranagua, the second largest port in Brazil in tonnage and the third in container shipping and was carrying cars manufactured in Brazil destined for Luanda, Angola. So far, no arrests have been made.
Only four days earlier - on June 26 - another consignment of around 238kg of cocaine was seized at the Port of Dakar. The vessel originated from Brazil, but on this occasion, four of the cars in which the cocaine was hidden were destined for Hamburg, Germany, and 11 for the port of Tema, Ghana.
At least 15 Senegalese have been arrested in connection with the case. The seizure brought the total quantity of cocaine confiscated in a week in Dakar to over one ton. The value of the cocaine has not yet been announced.
The seizure of cocaine of variable quantities is not uncommon in Senegal. In July 2007 about 2.4 tons of cocaine was found in an empty sailing boat in Mbour, a touristic seaside resort where many Latin-Americans own hotels and businesses. A few days later, 1.2 tons of cocaine was seized at another seaside resort, Nianing in the Petite Côte region of Senegal.
Since the mid-2000s, there have been several seizures in many other West African countries. In 2018, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) stated that “(D)rug trafficking is a growing and cross-cutting threat across Africa, with drug cartels and criminal groups operating illicit networks to connect crime markets across the continent and around the globe. Africa is a consumption, production and transit hub for various illicit drugs, with an estimated 18 tons of cocaine originating from South America and destined for Europe transiting through West Africa every year.”
The 2017 World Drug Report, issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), concurred with the INTERPOL finding. During a UN Security Council debate in December 2013, the UN Secretary-General estimated the yearly value of cocaine transiting through West Africa at US$ 1.25 billion – significantly more than the annual national budgets of several countries in the region. Many analysts consider this amount to be very conservative.
In the past couple of years, there was a false sense of optimism that cocaine trafficking in West Africa was in steep decline. One of the leading drug transshipment countries in the region, Guinea Bissau, did not report any cocaine seizures between April 2007 and March 2019. In March this year, following a tip-off, police seized 789 kilograms of cocaine near Safim, in the Biombo Region, 15 kilometres from the capital, Bissau. The drugs were found in 30-kilogram bags and hidden in the false bottom of a truck loaded with fish. This seizure quashed the false sense of optimism. The recent seizures in Senegal also clearly highlight the fact that the problem is far from over in the region. More sophisticated methods were likely deployed to evade customs officials, the latter may have turned a blind eye or enriched themselves from the trafficking.
The problem is beyond cocaine and no longer one of just trafficking. In 2014, the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) championed by the late former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and the former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, published a flagship report titled “Not Just in Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa”. The report, inter alia, warns that “Cocaine, heroin and Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) have become increasingly available in the region, leading to greater use and dependence, especially among young people.” UNODC which has its regional office in Dakar, estimates that in 2016, there were more than 34 million cannabis users in west and central Africa as well as 1.8 million cocaine users.
Since 2010, West Africa has been a major producer of methamphetamine, an addictive stimulant, and synthetic drugs. These drugs are shipped to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. At least ten labs have been discovered in Nigeria, including in a place called Monkey Village. An international cocaine-trafficking organization was also caught trying to set up a methamphetamine lab in Liberia.
It was alleged that the group conspired to bribe officials to traffic ephedrine, an organic compound used in decongestants and a commonly-used precursor for meth, to manufacture 20 kg of crystalline methamphetamine every day for shipment to Europe, USA and Japan. Chemicals, including MDP-2-P used to make ecstasy, were found at a lab raided in Guinea. A special Reuters report quotes a senior US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official as listing Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana and Guinea-Bissau as possible locations for meth labs.
The UNODC World Drug report published in 2018 shows “the global seizure of pharmaceutical opioids in 2016 was 87 tons, roughly the same as the quantities of heroin seized that year. Seizures of pharmaceutical opioids - mainly tramadol in West and Central Africa, and North Africa accounted for 87 per cent of the global total in 2016. Countries in Asia, which had previously accounted for more than half of global seizures, reported just 7 per cent of the global total in 2016.”
The continued trafficking and increased production and consumption require urgent action on the part of ECOWAS and individual West African states. Before now, ECOWAS had been great in producing blueprints. In 2008, West African leaders demonstrated their commitment to address the scourge when they adopted the Political Declaration on the Prevention of Drug Abuse, Illicit Drug Trafficking and Organized Crimes in West Africa.
An ECOWAS Counter-Terrorism Strategy and Implementation Plan was adopted in February 2013, and the ECOWAS Integrated Maritime Security Strategy was finalized in November 2013. Very few countries have implemented the regional action plan or lived up to any of their commitments. Similarly, limited efforts have been made by ECOWAS to work with the producing countries in Latin America to share experiences and work on a strategy to address the plague.
A key lesson they may learn from Latin America is to ensure they do not militarize the problem or declare war on drugs. As WACD notes, “Militarizing the response is not the answer, as it could increase the political leverage and popular appeal of groups that traffic drugs, and spur more violence, as has happened elsewhere.” The report further notes that “Evidence from Mexico suggests that a militarized response to drug trafficking can actually increase violence.
The Mexican government originally designed a strategy centered on military assaults on trafficking groups and the targeting of top trafficking kingpins. While somewhat successful in weakening the cartels, the strategy also triggered a competition between the different illegal networks looking to control the market, resulting in a dramatic rise in violence: the numbers of murders in Mexico almost doubled between 2007 and 2012.” The report concludes that “The ‘tough on crime’ (mano dura) approach in Central America has led to massive prison overcrowding, systematic violations of human rights, and the strengthening or toughening of street gangs linked to drug trafficking organizations. Moreover, it can also lead to the infiltration and eventual control of the security forces by criminal groups.”
Militarization has not worked. The current approach adopted by many West African countries to criminalize even minor drug-related offences has also largely failed. WACD notes that it not only places users at greater risk but also fuels corruption and places an unnecessary burden on already overwhelmed criminal justice systems and removes the focus from those high-level targets whose activities should be the real target of law enforcement. Increased funding for drug-related treatment and health services, better-equipped law enforcement agencies, and crackdowns on government corruption in the region would likely mitigate the illicit drug trade and its effects.
West Africa must focus on a people-centered, public health and human rights-based drug control approach to deal with the challenge. The overarching purpose of drug control must be to ensure the health, well-being and security of individuals. Governments must commit to treating people who use drugs with support and care, rather than punishment. Drug users must have access to harm reduction services to prevent HIV and other infections, including needle and syringe programmes, opioid substitution therapy and antiretroviral medicines. In addition, West African Governments must “defend [themselves] against political penetration by drug traffickers [which] will largely be determined by how well it can protect its electoral systems from such interference.”
Guinea Bissau became a haven for Colombian drug lords after they reportedly financed the 2005 re-election campaign of late President João Bernardo ‘Nino’ Vieira. Money-laundering and campaign financing laws need to be revised and enforced. If we do not take some of these steps urgently, it may be too late to stop intra-state conflicts and drug turf wars that are similar to those in Latin America.
© 2019 Politico Online
