Impact of narco-trade on democratic governance in Africa
The African continent has experienced severe challenges of conflict that ranges from brutal violent extremist insurgencies and military coups, which have impacted a lot on the stability of many states. The recent coup attempt in the West African coastal state of Guinea-Bissau has brought to the surface the nefarious impact of the drugs or narco-trade on national security and overall democratic governance of states. Guinea-Bissau is generally recognised as a narco-state where state capture by traffickers has already occurred.
It is a glaring fact that many parts of Africa, especially West Africa, are under attack from international criminal networks that are using the sub-region as a key global hub for the distribution, wholesale, and increased production of illicit drugs. Most of this drug trade involves cocaine sold in Europe, although heroin is also trafficked to the United States, and the sub-region is becoming an export base for amphetamines and their precursors, mainly for East Asian markets, Europe and, increasingly, the United States. Furthermore it is frustratingly disturbing that some of these drugs have found their way in local markets across the continent causing severe socio-economic devastation to local populations, especially the youth.
The most important of these criminal networks are drug trafficking organisations from Latin America, primarily from Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico, partnering in most cases with West African criminals. These criminals, particularly from Nigeria and Ghana, have been involved in the global drug trade for several decades, first with cannabis and later with heroin. The problem has worsened to the point that these networks represent an existential threat to the viability of already fragile states in West Africa as independent, rule of law based entities. That is why I have stated that as part of this new Latin America-West Africa criminal nexus, Guinea-Bissau is generally recognised as a narco-state where state-capture by traffickers has already occurred. It is within the realm of democratic governance where the narco-trade has eroded institutions that are meant to protect transparency, accountability, good governance and most importantly the rule of law.
There are some factors that determine the impact of organised crime (especially drug related) on democratic governance and create a spiral of mistrust, corruption and violent reactions. The involvement of politicians and militaries as well as police forces (state capture) undermines the trust of the public and wider civil society into state institutions. The role of organised crime in the erosion of democratic governance is marked by zones of fragile statehood, the undermining of political institutions, the replacement of social policies by nonstate actors, the bribing of political actors and the illicit financing of political campaigns. The most important factors for upholding a criminal system are therefore income generation through the drug trade and human trafficking, the laundering of money, the provision of arms and the intensification of political power through corruption and impunity. In addition, the Drug Economy in many parts of Africa is linked to conflict because drugs, like alluvial diamonds, are easy to appropriate and transport to markets, as opposed to oil, gas, timber and minerals. The illegal drug business is the branch of organised crime which generates the highest revenues. Then this access to funds by participating in illegal actions enables to pay fighters such as insurgent extremist groups acquire weapons and cause instability within a state. Drugs are hence instrumental in enabling hostile non-state actors to threaten the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force and control over territory, as well as the security of its citizens. In this sad state of affairs, corruption and impunity takes centre stage. This is because the reach of actors of drugs-related organised crime into the political sphere is, among intimidation and clientelism, mainly based on corruption. The level of this organised crime is correlated with the failure in the delivery of basic political goods by the state. It is important to note that the stability of state institutions grants predictability to political processes, an impartial and effective judiciary guarantees individual rights, and the protection of political rights allows citizens to vote and to compete for public offices. However, if corrupt politicians captured by drug syndicates undermine these rights, the trust in institutions and democracy rapidly diminishes and this further contributes to the growth of criminal networks. This kind of corruption has diverse functions to maintain or newly perceive power through infiltrating police and military forces, political institutions of decision making such as national or local parliaments, judicial decision-making or the media.
The overall impact of this is that illicit drug markets have a corrupting effect on government, which undermines their legitimacy, and consequently their ability to effectively govern. Where the state institutions are dominated by a variety of actors in the illegal drug trade, this undercuts the moral authority of the state. Whether government officials are elected by popular vote or appointed by non-elected officials, if drug trafficking syndicates influence them with money to purchase access of influence, the result is endemic graft which in turn undermines the legitimacy of the state, which in turn, strengthens the hand of violent groups opposed to the authority of the state. From this one, can safely argue that one of the drivers to governance deficit in many parts of Africa especially some of the fragile states of West Africa (Guinea-Bissau in particular), is due to the dominance of the narco-trade which has sadly retarded the pace of the consolidation of democratic institutions where drug smuggling syndicates have corrupted the political elites and security agencies to undermine the already weak institutions of governance.
African leaders must work hard to strengthen institutions of governance and reform the security sector because states with stable domestic institutions (democratic or authoritarian) are likely to be less susceptible to the influence of the powerful drug trafficking organised criminal syndicates.