West Africa's international drug trade

African Affairs

Volumn 108, Issue 431, 2009, Pages 171-196

  Ellis, Stephen ^a  

^a VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DRUGS TRADE; INTERNATIONAL TRADE; PARALLEL ECONOMY; SOCIAL PROBLEM; STATE ROLE;

AFRICA; GUINEA-BISSAU; NIGERIA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WEST AFRICA;

EID: 62849125295     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adp017     Document Type: Article

References (144)

1. UNODC, Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa: The threat to stability and development (UNODC, Vienna, 2007), (31 January 2008).
2. For example: NRC Handelsblad (Rotterdam), 4 August 2008;
3. Financial Times, 4 November 2008.
4. UNODC, Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa, p. 8.
5. Ibid., p. 3.
6. David Blair, 'Special report: West Africa welcomes Latin America's drug barons', Daily Telegraph, (9 December 2008).
7. Gleaned during a visit to Monrovia, 11-14 January 2009.
8. Interview, law-enforcement officer, Accra, 31 August 2008.
9. Interviews, US government officials, Washington DC, 6 June 2008.
10. US National Archives and Records Administration [NARA II], Maryland, RG 84, general records of foreign service posts: Records of the consulate-general, Lagos, 1940-63, box 2, 'Smuggling of narcotics'.
11. Antonio L. Mazzitelli, 'Transnational organized crime in West Africa: the additional challenge', International Affairs 83, 6 (2007), pp. 1075-6.
12. UNODC, Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa, pp. 11-16.
13. Jean-François Bayart, Stephen Ellis, and Béatrice Hibou, The Criminalization of the State in Africa (James Currey, Oxford, 1999), especiallv Bayart's Chapter 2.
14. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong, 'Diaspora and drug trafficking in West Africa: A case study of Ghana', African Affairs 104, 416 (2005), pp. 429-47.
15. National Archives, Ibadan, Oyo Prof 1/1321: Correspondence concerning coca cultivation.
16. National Archives, Ibadan, Ekiti Div 1/1, 1085, Indian hemp: Circular from Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government, Western Region, 7 December 1954.
17. NARA II, RG 84, records of the consulate-general, Lagos, 1940-63, box 2, 'Smuggling of narcotics': Erwin P. Keeler to Department of State, 3 February 1954.
18. Ibid.: Erwin P. Keeler to Department of State, 4 December 1952.
19. Ibid.: Memorandum for Mr Ross, 21 August 1952, attached to Robert W. Ross to Department of State, 28 August 1952.
20. Ibid.: Erwin P. Keeler to Department of State, 4 December 1952.
21. Cf. Alfred W. McCoy. The Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade (Lawrence Hill Books, New York, 1991).
22. Press release number 295, Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, 22 March 1971, contained in press cuttings file in Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos.
23. 'The cost of war against smuggling', New Nigerian, 31 August 1979.
24. 'Avoid Indian Hemp', leaflet c. 1974, in 'Nigeria: Drugs, 1979-', press cuttings file in Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos.
25. Umoh Tames Umoh and Alhaji Nurudeen Adio-Saka, 'The problem of smuggling among pilgrims', Daily Times, 13 July 1972. In 1972, 44,061 Nigerians officially went on the hajj, the second-largest national contingent after Yemenis.
26. Penny Green, Drugs, Trafficking and Criminal Policy: The scapegoat strategy (Waterside Press, Winchester, 1998), p. 46.
27. Sunday Times (Lagos), 10 March 1974; 'The redeemer is not near', Daily Sketch (Lagos), 28 July 1974.
28. National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew: FCO 65/1530: Reuters report, 23 August 1974.
29. 'Organized crime: Nigeria' (Paper presented at UNODC workshop on West African organized crime, Dakar, 2-3 April 2004).
30. Mark Shaw, Crime as Business, Business as Crime: West African criminal networks in southern Africa (South African Institute of International Affairs, Johannesburg, 2003), p. 11.
31. Statement by US Embassy. Lagos. published in Daily Times (Lagos). 10 December 1984, p. 3.
32. Rasheed Williams, 'Nigeria, a leading heroin market', National Concord (Lagos), 8 April 1985.
33. Statement by US Embassy, Lagos, published in Daily Times, 10 December 1984, p. 3.
34. Ibid.
35. Quoted in the Daily Times, 26 November 1984.
36. Quoted in '... and its Nigerian connection', Guardian (Lagos), 30 December 1984.
37. According to the newsletter Drug Force, the official publication of the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency, quoted in Daily Champion (Lagos), 9 May 1993.
38. '2,000 Nigerians in foreign jails for drug offences', New Nigerian 13 May 1988.
39. The Guardian (Lagos) carried a series of reports on this matter in May and June 1983. See also Axel Klein, 'Trapped in the traffick: growing problems of drug consumption in Lagos', Journal of Modern African Studies 32, 4 (1994), pp. 657-77.
40. Address by Alain Labrousse, director of Observatoire Géopolitique des Drogues, Bordeaux, 28 April 1994; interviews, US law-enforcement officer, Bangkok, 16 May 2005, and former Liberian presidential aide, Amsterdam, 4 November 2004.
41. Mark Shaw, 'The political economy of crime and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa', South African Journal of International Affairs 8, 2 (2001), p. 66.
42. A reference to the notorious Four One Nine advance fee fraud. See Daniel Jordan Smith, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday deception and popular discontent in Nigeria (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2007), especially Chapter 1.
43. Speech on 19 Januarv 2006, reported in Punch (Lagos), 20 January 2006.
44. Peter Lewis, 'From prebendalism to predation: The political economy of decline in Nigeria', Journal of Modern African Studies 34, 1 (1996), p. 97. The reference to 'Zaïrianisation' is on p. 80.
45. Stanislav Andreski, The African Predicament: A study in the pathology of modernisation (Michael Joseph, London, 1968). A definition of 'kleptocracy' is on p. 109.
46. See the unofficial version of the Oputa Panel report released on 1 January 2005 by the National Democratic Movement (Washington, DC), Vol. 4, p. 104, (24 November 2068). Further information is in Richard Akinnola (ed.). The Murder of Dele Giwa: Cover-up - revelations (Human Rights Publications, Lagos, 2001).
47. The BCCI Affair: A report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown (US Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1993), pp. 99-104. The quotation is on p. 49.
48. Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, False Profits: The inside story of BCCI, the world's most corrupt financial empire (Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1992), p. 162.
49. United States Information Service (USIS) press release, 2 March 1998, quoted in Punch, 5 March 1998.
50. Kofi Bentsum Quantson, Travelling and Seeing: Johnny just come (NAPASVIL Ventures, Accra, 2002), p. 67.
51. '2,000 Nigerians in foreign jails for drug offences', New Nigerian 13 May 1988.
52. Jonas Okwara, 'Three Nigerians held weekly in US on drug charges', Guardian, 15 July 1990.
53. Jackson Akpasubi, 'US says "no" to Nigeria', Sunday Concord, 30 June 1991. Eric Fottorino, La Piste blanche : L'Afrique sous l'emprise de la drogue (Balland, Paris, 1991), p. 19, gives the same figure of 15,433 for Nigerians arrested for drug offences between 1979 and 1989.
54. Fottorino, La Piste blanche, p. 19.
55. Segun Babatope, 'Drug trafficking: A nation under siege', National Concord, 3 February 1992.
56. Nnamdi Obasi, 'Drug trafficking', Weekend Concord, 1 June 1991.
57. Green, Drugs, Trafficking, p. 48.
58. 'Adegoke's ill-fated deal with skypower', National Concord, 30 April 1989.
59. Editorial, Nigerian Tribune, 24 March 2006.
60. 'NDLEA stinks - Bamaiyi', Daily Times, 18 February 1994.
61. Fottorino, La Piste blanche, pp. 57, 60.
62. Stephen Ellis, 'Les prolongements du conflit israélo-arabe: Le cas du Sierra Leone', Politique Africaine 30 (1988), pp. 69-75.
63. Robert I. Friedman, Red Mafiya: How the Russian mob has invaded America (Little, Brown, Boston, MA, 2000), pp. 57-8.
64. Akyeampong, 'Diaspora and drug trafficking in West Africa', p. 441.
65. Author's interviews with former aide to President Charles Tavlor, 2002-4.
66. Kwesi Yankah and Lazarus D. Maavang, 'Charles Taylor: Dark days in Ghana', Uhuru (Accra), 3 (1990), p. 40.
67. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Making a Killing: The business of war (Public Integrity Books, Washington, DC, 2003), especially chapters 7 and 10.
68. Nya Kwiawon Taryor (ed.), Justice, Justice: A cry of my people (Strugglers' Community Press, Chicago, IL, 1985), p. 54; phone interview, former aide to Charles Taylor, 4 November 2004.
69. Interview, Ghanaian police officer, Accra, 31 August 2008.
70. Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 July 2005. Antony Altbeker, A Country at War with Itself: South Africa's crisis of crime (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg and Cape Town, 2007.), pp. 124-5, argues that South Africans often exaggerate the impact of foreign organized crime in their own country. However, his concern in this passage is to refute any suggestion that South African crime is foreign rather than homegrown.
71. USIS press release, 2 March 1998, quoted in Punch, 5 March 1998.
72. Fottorino, La Piste blanche, pp. 60-1;
73. see also allegations in Liberian Diaspora 3, 12 (1993), p. 4 (to be viewed with caution, as this was a propaganda sheet for Charles Taylor).
74. 'Drug: NDLEA sends officers' names to presidency', Guardian, 9 November 1998.
75. See interview with General Bamaiyi in Sunday Champion, 20 June 1999.
76. John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and international terrorism (third edition, Pluto Press, London and Sterling, VA, 2002), p. 143.
77. Laolu Akande, 'Nigeria high on US fraud, drugs list', Guardian, 18 August 1999.
78. UNODC, Transnational Organized Crime in the West African Region (New York, NY, 2005), p. 21.
79. Sisca Agboh, 'NDLEA impounds N1b worth of cocaine', Post Express (Lagos), 31 August 2002.
80. Laolu Akande, 'Nigerian boy, 12, swallows 87 condom wraps of heroin', Guardian, 13 April 2002.
81. UNODC, Transnational Organized Crime in the West African Region, p. 48.
82. 'Italy police arrest mafia suspect', BBC News, 14 November 2003, (24 November 2008).
83. Statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on African Affairs, 20 July 1995, obtained from the US Information Resource Center, US Embassy, The Hague.
84. Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives: Designing effective organizations (1983; second edition, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993), p. 254.
85. The term 'adhocracy' was coined by Alvin Toffler in his bestseller Future Shock (Bantam Books, New York, NY, 1972).
86. Interview, Lagos, 24 October 2007.
87. '237 Nigerian drug convicts in arrive [sic] today', Guardian, 29 March 2003.
88. 'African community at Pratunum, Bangkok' (paper presented by Royal Thai Police, African Criminal Networks conference, Bangkok, 16-19 May 2005).
89. 'Dongri nightlife', Time Out Mumbai 2, 24 (July-August 2006), (24 November 2008).
90. 'Nigerian drug barons invade South Africa', Guardian, 11 April 1998.
91. The name has been suppressed for legal reasons. Information obtained from official source, Lagos, 24 October 2007.
92. Reuben Abati, 'The hanging of Amara Tochi in Singapore', Guardian, 28 January 2006.
93. Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), 'An analysis of the drug trafficking issues and trends at the Murtala Muhammed International airport, Ikeja, Lagos (MMIA)' (unpublished paper, 7 pp., September 2007).
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Franco Prina, 'Trade and exploitation of minors and young Nigerian women for prostitution in Italy', 2003, Chapter 1, (24 November 2008).
97. Cf. Kate Meagher, 'Social capital, social liabilities, and political capital: Social networks and informal manufacturing in Nigeria', African Affairs 105, 421 (2006), pp. 553-82.
98. Stephen Ellis, 'The Okija shrine: Death and life in Nigerian politics', Journal of African History 49, 3 (2008), pp. 445-66.
99. Joe Igbokwe, Igbos: 25 years after Biafra (Advent Communications, no place given, 1995), p. 40.
100. Joe Brown Akubueze v The Federal Republic of Nigeria, 4 March 2003. Available via Toma Micro Publishers Ltd., (23 July 2008).
101. Flemming Quist, 'Drug trafficking in West Africa 2000-2004 in an international perspective' (UNODC workshop on West African organized crime, Dakar, 2-3 April 2004).
102. Ibid.
103. Ibid.
104. Ibid.
105. Johan van den Dongen and Bart Olmer, 'Vloedgolf van drugs', De Telegraaf (Amsterdam), 26 October 2006.
106. Interview, Dutch judicial officer, Amsterdam, 13 December 2006; cf. Bart Middelburg and Paul Vugts (eds), De Endstra-Tapes: De integrale gesprekken van Willem Endstra met de Recherche (Nieuw Amsterdam publishers, Amsterdam, 2006), p. 324, a record of police interviews with a leading figure of the Dutch underworld, the late Willem Endstra.
107. ISN Security Watch, 27 February 2008, (28 February 2008).
108. Mazzitelli, 'Transnational organized crime in West Africa', p. 1075.
109. UNODC, 'Cocaine trafficking in western Africa, situation report', October 2007, pp. 3-5, (24 November 2008).
110. Ibid., p. 5.
111. This Day, 10, 13, 15 June 2006.
112. Interview, Lagos, 24 October 2007.
113. UNODC, 'Cocaine trafficking in Western Africa, situation report', October 2007, p. 6.
114. Presentation by DEA agent, Washington DC, 6 June 2008.
115. 'Bissau drugs probe death threats', BBC News, 30 July 2008, (31 July 2008).
116. International Crisis Group, Guinée-Bissau: Besoin d'Etat (Africa report No. 142, Dakar/Brussels, July 2008).
117. Mazzitelli, 'Transnational organized crime in West Africa', p. 1076, note 23.
118. UNODC, 'Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa' (November 2008), p. 13, gives the origin as Guinea-Bissau, (4 February 2009).
119. Interviews, Accra, 31 August 2008; 'West Africa/drugs', Africa Confidential 49, 6 (14 March 2008).
120. Alistair Thomson, 'Drug trade threatens to corrode Ghana's image', International Herald Tribune, 23 December 2008.
121. Africa Confidential 49, 6 (14 March 2008), 'West Africa/ drugs'.
122. Interviews, Lagos and Abuja, October 2007; '"Blood oil" dripping from Nigeria', BBC News, 27 July 2008, (25 November 2008).
123. 'Mali cocaine haul after firefight', BBC News, 4 January 2008, (17 January 2008).
124. UNODC, 'Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat', p. 32, reports the discovery of a similar amount of hashish. It is not clear if this is a coincidence or a reporting error.
125. Heba Saleh, 'Islamist militants rise again in Algeria', Financial Times, 1 September 2008;
126. cf. International Crisis Group, Islamist Terrorism in the Sahel: Fact or fiction? (Africa report No. 92, Dakar/Brussels, 2005), pp. 18-19.
127. Presentation by DEA officers, Washington DC, 6 June 2008.
128. UNODC, Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa, p. 20.
129. Francisco E. Thoumi, 'The rise of two drug tigers: The development of the illegal drugs industry and drug policy failure in Afghanistan and Colombia', in F. Bovenkerk and M. Levi (eds), The Organized Crime Community: Essays in honor of Alan A. Block (Studies of Organized Crime No. 6, Springer Science and Business Media, New York, NY, 2007), p. 126.
130. Ibid.
131. Ibid.
132. Ibid., p. 127.
133. UNODC, Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa, p. 1.
134. 'UN fears over West Africa drugs', BBC News, 27 November 2007, (25 November 2008).
135. UNODC, Crime and Development in Africa (Vienna, 2005), p. 67, (26 November 2008).
136. Ibid.
137. Cf. Manuel Castells, End of Millennium (second edition, Blackwell, Oxford, 2000), Vol. 3 of the Information Age trilogy, pp. 82-118.
138. William Reno, Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995), p. 3.
139. Interestingly, the expression 'shadow state' was used long before, by Jean Suret-Canale, 'La Guinée dans le système colonial', Présence africaine 29 (1959-60), p. 97.
140. Reno, Corruption and State Politics, p. 2
141. Cf. Tekena Tamuno and Robin Horton, 'The changing position of secret societies and cults in modern Nigeria', African Notes 5, 2 (1969), pp. 36-62.
142. Castells, End of Millennium, p. 98;
143. see also Bayart et al., The Criminalization of the State in Africa chapters 1 and 2.
144. 'Chinese gangs in Africa for long haul', Jane's Intelligence Digest 8 July 2008.