The claim by Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo that he and his cabinet members were targetted for elimination because of the war against narcotics trafficking and damning reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and INTERPOL indicate that West African nations and international allies must factor the facts in mounting an effective response to a resurgence of military coups in the region. Assistant Editor Bola Olajuwon reports.
It seems the chickens are coming home to roost, going by the claim of Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo that the coup attempt against his government recently “has to do with our fight against narco-trafficking”. Embalo said some of the people involved in the coup attempt had been arrested.
The attack in the capital of the unstable country, which came only about two weeks after the military overthrew the democratically elected leader of Burkina Faso, underscored fears that a recent spate of coups is inspiring others in the region. Illicit drug trafficking by cartels is also being blamed for instability in the region.
The illicit trade
Drug trafficking is a global illicit trade involving the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of substances, which are subject to drug prohibition laws. United Nations (UN) member states recognised the importance of strengthening international cooperation to counter the world drug problem.
The UN’s efforts in countering the problem are based on three major control treaties: the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 (as amended in 1972), the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. These three conventions attribute important functions to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and to the International Narcotics Control Board.
Guinea-Bissau, West Africa and narco-trafficking
Though Embalo’s claim could not be immediately ascertained, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) had warned several times that the West African country was at risk of becoming an epicentre for drug trafficking and the crime and corruption associated with it. Guinea-Bissau, especially, became known as a transit point for cocaine between Latin America and Europe in the 2000s as traffickers profited from corruption and weak law enforcement.
An international affairs expert and former top communication officer with ECOWAs, Mr. Paul Ejime, in an interview with The Nation on the issue, said drug trafficking is a serious problem in Guinea Bissau.
“The West African country is a drug-trafficking hub. The military chiefs are involved. It will continue until the country stamps it out. When organised criminals see a place as weak, they will continue to strive. In 2020, Embalo asked ECOWAS to remove its force, now he is asking the bloc to send back the force. Organise criminal gangs are not the people a country can fight alone, because they are very powerful,” he said.
According to him, the drug traffickers have the money to buy weapons and wage wars against governments in power. He added that weapons are very cheap to come by in the West Africa and Sahel regions since the death of Muammar Gaddafi and such weapons were being used by traffickers and criminals in the region.
The UNODC claimed that no fewer than 50 tonnes of cocaine from the Andean countries – mountainous regions of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – are transiting West Africa every year, heading north where they are worth almost $2 billion on the streets of European cities.
According to the UN agency, most cocaine entering Africa from South America makes landfall around Guinea-Bissau in the north and Ghana in the south. Much of the drugs are shipped to Europe by drug mules on commercial flights. Upon arrival, the cocaine is predominantly distributed by West African criminal networks throughout Europe.
A UNODC report made available to The Nation claimed that between 2004 and 2007, at least two distinct trans-shipment hubs emerged in West Africa: one centred on Guinea-Bissau and Guinea, and one concentrated in the Bight of Benin, which spans from Ghana to Nigeria.
“Colombian traffickers transported cocaine by ‘mother ship’ to the West African coast before offloading to smaller vessels. Some of this cocaine proceeded onward by sea to Spain and Portugal, but some were left as payment to West Africans for their assistance. The West Africans then traffic this cocaine on their own behalf, largely by commercial air couriers. Shipments were also sent in modified small aircraft from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to various West African destinations,” the report stated.
Also, Ameripol, an organisation based on the cooperation of police forces throughout the Americas, released a report, which claims that the situation in West Africa demonstrates the flexibility of drug traffickers. “The weakness and poverty in the region make it a good location to establish safe routes,” the report said.
Reports also indicated that the conflicts in Libya and Tunisia in 2011 interrupted the main drug routes to Europe, and the French intervention in Mali in 2013 had the same effect. But this did not stop the traffickers. “Drug trafficking follows a law of physics – it is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed,” Ameripol claimed.
In other words, a crackdown on it in one place, and it will pop up in another. “For this reason, the expansive effect of the countries most committed to the fight against drug trafficking has an effect of ‘welcoming’ organisations in other countries,” Ameripol said.
Drug trafficking as a security threat in West Africa
Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa put it succinctly: “Drug trafficking is having a destabilising impact on security and development in West Africa. Drug cartels buy more than real estate, banks and businesses, they buy elections, candidates and parties. In a word, they buy power”.
According to a UNODC report, a declining United States (U.S.) cocaine market and a rising European one appear to have prompted South American cocaine traffickers to make use of low-governance areas in West Africa as transit zones.
Speaking at the Security Council late last year, Costa said: “Guinea-Bissau has lost control of its territory and cannot administer justice”. The police and justice system, she said, were completely overwhelmed and ill-equipped to deal with the threat posed by foreign criminal groups colluding with powerful local allies. The issue, which had been under-reported in the media, had been breeding silent insecurity in the West African state.
UNODC enforcement team along with Goodwill Ambassador, Alessandro Scotti, witnessed a seizure of more than 600 kilogrammes of cocaine that had been trafficked through Guinea-Bissau in April 2007.
A report presented to the UN Security Council claimed that since 2006, 20 to 40 tonnes of cocaine per year were transiting through the West African region en route to Europe. It asserted that “with 20 tonnes valued at approximately US$ 1 billion on the wholesale market – a sum higher than the GDP of some West African countries – the criminal behaviour and corruption that travel alongside the cocaine are seriously affecting the security of the countries in the region”.
Ghada Fathi Waly, the UNODC Director-General/ Executive Director since 2020, said rising non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids and drug use disorders are harming health and public safety, as the region continues to be heavily affected by illegal tramadol imports.
She said greater security threats were being posed by cocaine trafficking with West Africa serving as a major transit area for onward shipments to Western and Central Europe, as well as cannabis resin trafficking. “The value of these illicit flows exceeds the national budgets of some transit countries, which is highly destabilising in this complex security situation,” Ms Waly said.
INTERPOL on drug trafficking
The International Criminal Police Organisation, commonly known as INTERPOL, facilitating worldwide police cooperation and crime control, with headquarters in Lyon, France, said criminal networks traffic a range of drugs, including cannabis, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. It said as international borders become increasingly porous, global abuse and accessibility to drugs have become increasingly widespread.
It said: “This international trade involves growers, producers, couriers, suppliers and dealers. It affects almost all of our member countries, undermining political and economic stability, ruining the lives of individuals and damaging communities. The end-users and addicts are often the victims of a powerful and manipulative business.
“Drug trafficking is often associated with other forms of crime, such as money laundering or corruption. Trafficking routes can also be used by criminal networks to transport other illicit products. As criminals devise ever-more creative ways of disguising illegal drugs for transport, law enforcement faces challenges in detecting such concealed substances. In addition, new synthetic drugs are produced with regularity, so police need to always be aware of new trends and products on the illicit market.”
In two operations, INTERPOL mobilised law enforcement in 41 countries to arrest 287 individuals and seize illicit narcotics estimated to be worth nearly EUR 100 million in Africa and the Middle East.
The results of the operations included 17 tonnes of cannabis resin, valued at EUR 31 million, confiscated from warehouses in Niamey, Niger – the largest seizure in the country’s history. Shipped from Lebanon to the Togolese port of Lomé and then transported over 1,000 kilometres by lorry, the drugs were destined for Libya.
West Africa accounts for three-quarters of tramadol seized globally
It has been discovered that West Africa accounts for three-quarters of tramadol seized globally on the sea. The amount of this banned substance seized in Nigeria – mostly at its ports – rose from less than eight tonnes in 2014 to close to 150 tonnes in 2018. In the whole of West Africa, more than 430 tonnes of tramadol have been seized in the period between 2014 and 2017 alone, with tramadol seizures being recorded in Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Nigeria and Togo.
UNODC and INTERPOL response to drugs’ security threat in ECOWAS
In October 2008, the ECOWAS, supported by UNODC and the United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA) and in partnership with the European Union, held a Ministerial Conference in Praia, Cape Verde, to address the serious security threat posed by drug trafficking in the region. The Political Declaration and Regional Action Plan that resulted from this conference were subsequently endorsed by the Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS in Abuja on 19 December 2008.
The Praia Declarations reflect a strong political commitment and establish the basis for a detailed cooperation framework to combat drug trafficking and organised crime in West Africa. The UNODC was entrusted with leading the process of translating the Political Declaration and Regional Action Plan into concrete programmes to be carried out by ECOWAS member states in partnership with UNOWA, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the INTERPOL and the European Union.
UNODC’s response to the call for support from ECOWAS was to design a crosscutting and comprehensive strategy based on the principle of shared responsibility.
The agency uses its comparative advantage to ensure a cross-border and integrated approach in the fight against illicit drug trafficking and organised crime, including the global threat posed by the transatlantic trafficking route. But, recognising the difficulty of managing vast African blue and green borders, the UNODC has set the objective to promote proactive policing by developing an intelligence-based approach to law enforcement and to improve inter-agency coordination with a view to disrupting the activities of organised crime groups behind drug trafficking.
On December 27, 2019, INTERPOL, as part of its collaboration with the UNODC , assisted Guinea Bissau to obtain a triple prison conviction with the largest cocaine seizures in the country resulting in the sentencing of three drug kingpins arrested during a police operation supported by INTERPOL. An INTERPOL Incident Response Team (IRT) deployed to Guinea Bissau helped local authorities to investigate a record 790 kilogrammes of cocaine seizure where four suspects from Nigeria, Guinea Bissau and Senegal were arrested.
Therefore, military and security analysts have called on ECOWAs countries to firm up the frameworks and implement them to the letter to tackle organised criminals and cartels making an incursion into the region.
The need for strong local, national security architecture
However, Ejime said ECOWAs countries battling drug traffickers must show individual local and national seriousness to fight those involved through local and national architecture. He called for the arrest and prosecution of the suspects before a strong and committed judiciary.
“A country like Guinea Bissau should show a strong commitment to carry the fights to drug lords by arresting them, confiscating the drugs and prosecuting them before the judiciary,” Ejime submitted.
The argument for adequate legal framework
According to the UNODC, one of the fundamental stumbling blocks has been the inadequacy of the legal framework. Many countries in the region are yet to fully domesticate the relevant provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Legal assessments carried out by UNODC in 12 countries of Central and West Africa between 2014 and 2019 indicated that only a few national frameworks fully met the requirements of UNCLOS in terms of criminalising offences and establishing universal jurisdiction. Thus, successful investigations leading to effective prosecutions remain rare, making maritime crimes low-risk and high reward criminal activities.
To counter this threat and improve criminal justice responses to maritime crime, the UNODC Nigeria Country Office said legal frameworks need to follow the quick evolution of criminal offences committed at sea by creating new regulations, improving the quality of existing legal instruments, as well as updating key definitions in line with the UNCLOS.
Ejime also urged ECOWAS leaders to ratify outstanding protocols they were yet to sign to enhance the fight against criminals and protect the region’s political stability.
Ensuring global collaboration on military patrols
However, in an interview with The Nation on the matter, a security chief, who pleaded anonymity, attributed spiralling cases of organised crimes in the area to the weak territorial protection of the Gulf of Guinea by member states. He added that the weak security situation has allowed foreign and local organised criminals to perpetuate their activities in the area. The expert noted that the most active naval force in the area is the Nigerian Navy, lamenting that there is little that other naval forces from the Republic of Benin, Ghana, Togo and others could do.
Former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr. Dakuku Peterside said there was an urgent need for international collaboration to tackle the menace. He said: “Dealing with the issues of maritime crimes requires inter-agency collaboration as well as regional collaboration between sister agencies in the participating countries.”
The Nigerian Navy (NN) has acquired more patrol crafts to combat maritime crimes in the country’s territorial waters. The Navy said it also arrested hundreds of vessels and barges as well as hundreds of suspects for various maritime offences in the last four years.
Military experts, however, said navies in the Gulf of Guinea need to come together with the support of European countries to tackle the menace.
The analyst noted that despite the performance of the Nigerian Navy in patrolling the Gulf of Guinea, it still required advanced naval platforms to bring sanity to the area. The expert added that the cost of lifting platforms and patrolling the area would only be borne by the Nigerian Navy, since the other member countries, who jointly owned the economic zone, are financially not capable. The security expert said the Gulf of Guinea leaders can also reach out to European navies and other foreign powers to assist in patrolling the area.
To Ejime, ECOWAS leaders should collaborate to tackle the weak links through sharing of military and police intelligence to embark on the joint arrest of suspects through regional collaboration to nip in the bud the festering attack on the region’s political stability.
To Ameripol, ECOWAS countries should “start to harmonise laws on certain crimes, particularly drug trafficking as a first step and related crimes as a second step, so as to fight in coordination, executing common policies and effective actions against the power of organised crime in the region”.
Strengthening civil society, democracy and good governance
Former African Union (AU) Commissioner for Peace and Security and top UN diplomat in West Africa Said Djinnit said ECOWAS needs to address the root causes of the recent coups. Supporting his assertion, analysts also stressed the need to focus more support on strengthening civil society, democracy and good governance in each country between elections, rather than focusing too narrowly just on elections themselves. They stressed that the youths, who were being lured into the drug trade, need to be engaged in productive ventures.
“Too often, verbal condemnations of coups or autocracy have not been reinforced with concrete actions to address the insecurity that creates fertile ground for coups,” an analyst and Vice President, Africa Centre, Dr. Joseph Sany, said.