NIGERIAN & ECOWAS EFFORTS TO COMBAT WEST AFRICAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 000112

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/16/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV KCRM SNAR EAID SOCI NI
SUBJECT: NIGERIAN & ECOWAS EFFORTS TO COMBAT WEST AFRICAN
DRUG TRAFFICKING

REF: 07 SECSTATE 165562

Classified By: Political Counselor Walter Pflaumer for reasons 1.4. (b
& d).


1. (SBU) In response to reftel, Post provides the following
information concerning Nigerian and ECOWAS efforts to combat
drug trafficking. This cable has been cleared by DEA/Lagos
and Legatt/Lagos.

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NIGERIA
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2. (SBU) SUMMARY: Nigeria remains a hub of narcotics
trafficking and money laundering activity. Nigerian criminal
organizations dominate the African drug trade and transport
narcotics to markets in the United States, Europe, Asia, and
other parts of Africa. Some of these organizations are
engaged in advance-fee fraud, commonly referred to in Nigeria
as "419 Fraud," and other forms of defrauding U.S. citizens
and businesses as well as citizens and businesses of other
countries. Serious under/unemployment has been a major
problem for Nigeria during periods of civilian and military
rule alike. The human misery related to unemployment and an
associated economic decline contributes significantly to the
continuation and expansion of drug trafficking, widespread
corruption, and other criminal acts in Nigeria. These
factors, combined with Nigeria's central location along the
major trafficking routes and access to global narcotics
markets provide both an incentive and a mechanism for
criminal groups to flourish. Nigeria's law enforcement
efforts are underfunded and poorly coordinated, and while
Nigeria has a national anti-drug strategy, most of its goals
remain unfulfilled. END SUMMARY.


3. (SBU) Nigeria is a major transit point for drugs destined
for the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the rest of the African
continent. Heroin from southeast and southwest Asia,
smuggled via Nigeria, accounts for a significant portion of
the heroin reaching the U.S., while Nigerian criminal
elements in South America ship cocaine through Nigeria to
Europe, Asia, and the rest of Africa (with South Africa being
the continent's largest single consumer nation).
Nigerian-grown marijuana, cultivated in all 36 states, is
exported to neighboring nations and Europe, but not to the
U.S. in any significant quantities. Aside from marijuana,
Nigeria does not produce any of the drugs that its nationals
traffic, and neither is it a producer of precursor chemicals.
Domestic demand for hard drugs is low, but seems to be on
the rise, and heroin and cocaine are readily available in
major Nigerian cities (in the absence of a formal effort to
gauge the problem, however, the actual extent of domestic
drug abuse is unknown).


4. (SBU) Nigeria's main anti-narcotics force is the National
Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). The NDLEA's most
successful interdictions have taken place at Nigeria's
international airports, with the successful targeting of
individual couriers, but it has outright failed in efforts to
apprehend major traffickers. Attempts by the NDLEA to arrest
and prosecute major players and their associates often fall
apart in the courts, which are subject to intimidation and
corruption. Asset seizures, which are permitted under law,
have never been systematically utilized as an enforcement
tool. Drug-related prosecutions, however, continue along at
a steady pace, and special drug courts have helped increase
the NDLEA's effectiveness. The NDLEA also operates demand
reduction programs in schools and universities. Regionally,
the NDLEA has assumed something of a leadership position,
creating (in association with DEA) the West African Joint
Operation (WAJO) initiative, and cooperating with the South
African police to target Nigerian nationals there. The NDLEA
also recently assisted Benin's Criminal Investigation Unit in
the seizure and investigation of 360 kg of cocaine.


5. (C) The NDLEA is woefully underfunded, and, though
mandated to work in concert with the Police, Customs, State
Security Service, and Immigration, in practice does not
coordinate well with those bodies. Although all law
enforcement elements are represented at Nigeria's

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international airports and seaports, joint operations between
them are virtually non-existent. This missing ingredient
partially explains the dearth of apprehensions of major
traffickers or the consistent interdiction of major shipments
of contraband. No single law enforcement agency in Nigeria
has adequate resources to combat the increasingly
sophisticated international crime networks operating in and
through the country. And, like all Nigerian government
agencies, the NDLEA suffered a loss of focus while the
country concentrated on the April 2007 general elections,
further reducing its effectiveness.


6. (SBU) Nigeria's counter-narcotics policy is based on the
National Drug Control Master Plan, which has been in place
since 1998. The Plan assigns responsibilities to various
government ministries and agencies, as well as to NGOs and
other interest groups. And, while it outlines basic resource
requirements and timeframes for the completion of its goals,
many agencies remain underfunded and their objectives
unfulfilled. With a premier place in Nigeria's national
strategy, the NDLEA has 46 operational field commands, seven
established directorates, and nine autonomous units that
together carry out the drug control mandate of the agency.


7. (C) COMMENT: Nigeria is the only African country on the
Majors list for the USG's annual narcotics certification.
Nigeria must make substantial efforts to adhere to its
obligations under international counter-narcotics agreements
and U.S. law. For the past several years, Nigeria has been
on the borderline for certification. Specifically, Nigeria
has failed demonstrably to identify, investigate, and arrest
kingpins. Also, Nigeria has yet to act on any of the U.S.
extradition requests pending since 2004. Moreover, federal
funding for Nigerian law enforcement agencies remains
insufficient and erratic in its disbursement, and Nigerian
police officers are poorly trained. This affects Nigeria's
ability to plan and follow-through on operations, resulting
in ineffectiveness and an apparent lack of commitment to the
task. Unless Nigeria remedies this situation, very little
progress will be made and none sustained. It will require
strong and sustained political will, combined with
international assistance and cooperation, to confront these
issues and bring about meaningful change. END COMMENT.

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ECOWAS
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8. (SBU) The Economic Community of West African States'
(ECOWAS) anti-narcotics strategy is embodied in its Regional
Plan of Action, adopted in 1997. The major goals of the
eight point plan include:

a) The establishment or strengthening of national and
regional structures for policy coordination and
implementation. This goal urges member states to create
multi-agency national task forces to analyze intelligence,
engage in joint operations, establish a national laboratory,
and set up a national drug control database. It also asks
for regular meetings of regional ministers tasked with
heading their countries' anti-drug efforts, the creation of a
regional intelligence database, improved training of regional
specialists, and the strengthening of the Regional Drug
Control Training Center in Abidjan.

b) Intensified regional and international cooperation. This
goal authorizes the ECOWAS Executive Secretariat (now the
Presidency) to negotiate and sign agreements obtaining
funding from the international community, recommends that
ECOWAS accede to the 1988 U.N. Convention Against Illicit
Traffic in Narcotics, and encourages the ratification of
regional conventions on extradition and money laundering.

c) The adoption of region-wide harmonized anti-drug and money
laundering legislation.

d) National human resource development to ensure ongoing
multidisciplinary training for personnel involved in drug
control, create special leadership training for law
enforcement department heads, and form a body of legal
personnel specializing in drug control.

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e) The execution of national epidemiological surveys to gauge
the extent of local drug abuse.

and

f) The creation of national drug abuse prevention, crop
substitution, and poverty alleviation plans, and the
recognition of the importance that NGOs might play in demand
reduction and addiction treatment.


9. (SBU) According to Mr. Gabriel Hounsou, ECOWAS' Acting
Director for "Gender, Youth, Drug Control, etc." (per his
handwritten card) and Mr. Mamadou Gueye, the former occupant
of the same office, the successes of the recent past include
the opening of an office in Dakar tasked with tracking money
laundering in Senegal, the regular convening of the
ministers' conference mentioned in paragraph (a) above,
persuading some states to adopt certain UN-origin
legislation, and generally raising awareness of the issue
among member states.


10. (SBU) Hounsou and Gueye also said their office has
practically no budget apart from approximately US$60,000
dedicated to the annual ministers' conference, and money to
put the ECOWAS logo on a small amount of office supplies to
hand out to visitors. Their plans for the future are to
visit Guinea-Bissau to express concern about the worsening
situation there, and urge a response to the "total breakdown"
of Guniea-Bissau law enforcement. When asked what practical
effect ECOWAS has had on West African trafficking, they said
they hoped their efforts had helped, but that the reality was
that they likely had no effect at all. They cited the
difficulties of working in a region that still had not come
to grips with its role in the international drug trade, and,
by way of showing the bureaucratic obstacles hindering
progress, cited past WAJO operations. As ECOWAS rules
prohibit the recognition of more than one international
anti-narcotics body at a time (currently that body is the
UNODC),ECOWAS could not support WAJO in any meaningful way,
resulting in the lack of international arrest and prosecution
powers by WAJO teams.


11. (C) COMMENT: An uncomfortably long silence ensued when
Poloff asked for particulars on ECOWAS successes in the war
on drugs, and the few instances mentioned above are hard to
quantify or qualify in any meaningful way. Indeed, though
Mr. Hounsou is the closest thing ECOWAS has to an anti-drug
czar, the majority of his portfolio is occupied by other
concerns. Furthermore, there seemed to be no push to
implement the remaining goals of the Plan of Action or to
resolve some of the obvious bureaucratic and legal barriers
hindering effective regional cooperation. Finally, with a
minuscule budget sufficient for little more than one meeting,
it is clear that fighting drug trafficking is a low priority
for the Community. At present it is our judgment that ECOWAS
has neither the capacity nor the will to play a major role in
reducing the West African drug trade. END COMMENT.
PIASCIK