Suchergebnisse

Background International agencies have viewed West Africa as a major player in the global trade in cocaine and heroin and in efforts to control that trade, as there have been reports of escalating arrests of drug smugglers, large-scale drug seizures and 'narco-states' in the subregion. It is claimed that a substantial share of the drugs available in Western markets transit through West Africa today and are increasingly used there as well. Notwithstanding this growing alarm, there is little serious scholarship addressing the issue of drugs and drug policy in West Africa. Methods The article assesses and challenges some of the existing depictions of drugs and drug policy in West Africa through an empirical case study of drug control in Nigeria – one of West Africa's most notorious 'drug hubs' and recently hailed as a policy model by international experts. Based on previously inaccessible government documents, interviews with key officials in Nigeria, as well as ethnographic work at Nigeria's key drug agency, the article provides a unique insight into the politics of drug policy-making and implementation in West Africa. Results After describing the dominant official narratives of Nigeria's drug control, the article shows how the key political dynamics underlying drug policy remain obscured by these narratives. Nigerian drug policy has been characterised by a highly exclusive policy-making process, repression as the sole means of implementation and a strong bond with international drug agencies. This policy emerged in the 1980s and 1990s and has remained the unchallenged norm until today. The political processes underlying Nigerian drug policy also explain why policy reform has been and will be difficult to accomplish. Conclusion These domestic political processes have largely been ignored in the existing depictions of drugs in West Africa, as they have mainly focused on externally driven drug threats and foreign policy responses. Most importantly, they have ignored the role played by the state. Rather than being too weak, the Nigerian state has shown a clear tendency towards repressive and coercive drug policy, which has received little popular support.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the institutional politics of law enforcement in Nigeria by focusing on illegal drug control since the mid 1980s. It assesses the available academic research on law enforcement governance, and contrasts it with an in-depth case study of drug law enforcement. The case study confirms views of the politicised nature of law enforcement. However, it goes beyond the patron–client centred approach to politics prevalent in the literature on African policing. The article adds an institutional dimension to the study of law enforcement governance, highlighting processes of centralisation, exclusion and shifting bureaucratic interests that have been central to the development of Nigerian drug law enforcement. It is based on previously inaccessible data from inside Nigerian drug law enforcement.

Nigerian drug lords, khat-chewing Somali pirates, and crystal meth-smoking gangs controlling South Africa?s streets: these are some of the vivid images surrounding drugs in Africa which have alarmed policymakers, academics and the general public. This revealing, original book presents a provocative argument about Africa?s role in the global drug trade. It shows how foreign-inspired policies have failed to help African drug users but have strengthened corrupt and brutal law enforcement officers

In recent years, international organisations have warned of the lethal trade in fake drugs particularly in Africa. This article assesses how and why fake pharmaceuticals have become a problem in Nigeria and how successful the state has been at regulating it, based on archival, official and interview data. While we show that the early roots of this trade can be found in colonial times, its expansion and growing policy concern were driven by crises in the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry and the healthcare system in the 1980s. In contrast to dominant explanations, we argue that the rise of fake drugs in Nigeria was closely linked to these national crises and related global trends towards market liberalisation and the commodification of health. In this unfavourable context, policies to regulate fake drugs remained limited as they only addressed the symptoms of a more fundamental political and economic problem: the shift from public health towards private wealth and profit-making.