Fewer drugs are being smuggled through West Africa, but the region remains a hub for illicit global trade in stolen oil and other contraband, according to a UN report released yesterday.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report said organized crime networks are taking advantage of West Africa’s weak states, threatening governance and arresting economic development in one of the world’s poorest regions.
“West Africa has everything that criminals need: resources, a strategic location, weak governance, and an endless source of foot soldiers who see few viable alternatives to a life of crime,” UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement.
The UN report identified oil theft and smuggling as the greatest threat to West Africa, because it is directly linked to insurgency and armed violence in the region.
Some 55 million barrels of Nigerian oil, nearly one-tenth of the country’s total annual production are being lost to theft and smuggling every year, the report said.
Revenue from misappropriated oil buys arms for insurgents and criminal groups in the Niger Delta, which has been racked by several years of ethnic conflict, according to the report.
Unlike the cocaine trade, where West African countries are way stations for the eventual delivery of the drug to Europe, oil proceeds go to criminals and corrupt officials in the region, making it harder to stop.
Growing international attention on drug trafficking in West Africa has smothered some of the activity in the past year, the report said.
No large seizures of cocaine have been made to date in West Africa this year, compared to 11 in 2007 and four last year.
But about 20 tons of cocaine, worth $1 billion (R8 billion), is smuggled from Latin America to Europe via West Africa, fuelling instability and corruption in a region marked by decades of civil war, ethnic infighting and frequent coups.
