African Affairs, 108/431, 171–196 doi: 10.1093/afraf/adp017CThe Author [2009]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reservedWEST AFRICA’S INTERNATIONALDRUG TRADESTEPHEN ELLISABSTRACTSince the publication in 2007 of a report on West Africa’s role in the illegalcocaine trade from Latin America to Europe, considerable media attentionhas focused on Guinea-Bissau in particular as a country infiltrated by druginterests. However, West Africa has a long history of involvement in theinternational drug trade, that has been dominated by Nigerian interestsespecially. Consideration of this history may help stimulate a debate inhistorical sociology that will illuminate both the nature of involvementin the drug trade itself, and also larger questions about the long-termformation of the state.A REPORT PUBLISHED BY THE UNITED NATIONS office on drugs and crime(UNODC) in December 2007 has drawn unprecedented international at-tention to West Africa’s role as an intermediary in the cocaine trade betweenLatinAmericaandEurope.1Major newspapers have carried full-page ar-ticles on the subject.2But law-enforcement officers have long been awareof the reach of West African drug-trading networks, and the UNODC andother official bodies have for some years been observing a sharp rise in co-caine exports from Latin America to West Africa. The roots of the currentcollaboration between drug traders in these two sub-continents in fact goback for more than a decade, as this article will demonstrate.According to the UNODC’s estimate, about a quarter of Europe’s annualconsumption of 135 to 145 tonnes of cocaine,3with a wholesale value ofStephen Ellis ([email protected]) is Desmond Tutu professor in the Faculty of SocialSciences, Free University (VU), Amsterdam, and a senior researcher at the African StudiesCentre, Leiden. He attended a conference on West African transnational crime organized bythe UNODC in Dakar, Senegal, on 2–3 April 2004, and a conference of law-enforcementofficers concerned with West African organized crime in Bangkok, Thailand, on 16–19 May2005. He is grateful to two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft of thisarticle.1. UNODC, Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa: The threat to stability and development(UNODC, Vienna, 2007), <http://www.UNODC.org/documents/data-and-analysis/west_africa_cocaine_report_2007-12_en.pdf> (31 January 2008).2. For example: NRC Handelsblad (Rotterdam), 4 August 2008; Financial Times,4November2008.3. UNODC, Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa,p.8.171 at University of Wisconsin-Madison on August 24, 2010 http://afraf.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded from172 AFRICAN AFFAIRSsome $1.8 billion,4currently transits via West Africa. In addition to thecocaine trade, West Africa is also a transit point for much smaller quantitiesof heroin exported from Asia to North America, as well as being a producerand exporter of cannabis products and perhaps amphetamines.Needless to say, this trade is entirely illegal, and yet the proceeds are sogreat as to have a considerable impact on West African economies.A major change in the global cocaine trade is taking place. SouthAmerican cocaine traders are reacting against the saturation of the NorthAmerican market, the growing importance of Mexican drug gangs, and ef-fective interdiction along the Caribbean smuggling routes. These factorshave induced them to make a strategic shift towards the European mar-ket, making use of West Africa’s conducive political environment and theexistence of well-developed West African smuggling networks. Some lead-ing Latin American cocaine traders are even physically relocating to WestAfrica5and moving a considerable part of their business operations to amore congenial location, just as any multinational company might do in theworld of legal business. Most recently, since a coup in Guinea in December2008, there have been reports6of Latin American cocaine traders moving insignificant numbers to Conakry, where some relatives of the late PresidentLansana Conte have an established interest in the cocaine trade. Some ob-servers believe that the next step for Latin American cocaine traders mightbe to commence large-scale production in West Africa. Some African law-enforcement officers are deeply concerned by the likely effects of the drugtrade and drug money on their own societies,7and indeed there is evidencethat drug money is funding political campaigns and affecting political rela-tions in several West African countries. Diplomats and other internationalofficials worry that some West African countries could develop along similarlines to Mexico,8where drug gangs have a symbiotic relationship with polit-ical parties and with the state and drug-related violence results in thousandsof deaths every year.Research by the present author shows that Lebanese smugglers wereusing West Africa as a transit point to transport heroin to the USA as early as1952.9A decade later, Nigerian and Ghanaian smugglers in particular beganexporting African-grown marijuana to Europe on a scale large enough to4. Ibid., p. 3.5. David Blair, ‘Special report: West Africa welcomes Latin America’s drug barons’, DailyTe l e g r a p h , <www.telegraph.co.uk/new/worldnews/africaandindianocean/senegal/3456011/S>(9 December 2008).6. Gleaned during a visit to Monrovia, 11–14 January 2009.7. Interview, law-enforcement officer, Accra, 31 August 2008.8. Interviews, US government officials, Washington DC, 6 June 2008.9. US National Archives and Records Administration [NARA II], Maryland, RG 84, generalrecords of foreign service posts: records of the consulate-general, Lagos, 1940–63, box 2,‘Smuggling of narcotics’. at University of Wisconsin-Madison on August 24, 2010 http://afraf.oxfordjournals.orgDownloaded fromWEST AFRICA’S INTERNATIONAL DRUG TRADE 173attract sustained official attention. By the early 1980s, some had graduatedto the global cocaine and heroin business. Since then, successful Nigerianand Ghanaian drug traders have established themselves in most parts ofthe world, including other West African countries, where they work withlocal partners in Benin, Cˆote d’Ivoire and elsewhere. Very large shipmentsof cocaine from South America to West Africa have been recorded forthe last ten years. In short, West Africa’s role in the international drugtrade has historical roots going back for over half a century and has beena matter of significant concern