Keypoints:
- Cocaine and heroin routes feed addiction
- Nigeria and Ghana face rehab shortages
- Corruption and synthetic drugs deepen crisis
DRUG trafficking in West Africa is driving rising levels of drug abuse, overwhelming fragile health systems and fuelling corruption in some of the world’s poorest countries, officials and researchers warn.
The United Nations first raised the alarm in 2024, noting how the Sahel — already destabilised by poverty and armed groups — was increasingly being used as a corridor for cocaine and heroin bound for Europe. Recent seizures confirm the trend, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported.
While most contraband is destined for European markets, officials say drugs are spilling into local communities where treatment facilities remain scarce. ‘Once it finds its way into the system… some will find itself within the country,’ said Alexander Twum Barimah, deputy director general of Ghana’s Narcotics Control Commission, in an interview with AFP.
Cocaine and heroin corridors
West Africa has long served as a stopover for Latin American cocaine shipped via maritime routes. Increasingly, traffickers are also moving drugs overland, exploiting porous borders and weak policing. Heroin and methamphetamine from Asia also pass through the region, routed from eastern and southern Africa towards Europe, according to the UN.
Experts say as much as 30 percent of Europe’s cocaine may now transit through west Africa, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Rising European demand, coupled with tighter policing of traditional smuggling routes, has driven this shift.
Some contraband is diverted into local markets, often when low-level traffickers are paid in drugs rather than cash. The result has been an uptick in local consumption.
Nigeria’s deepening crisis
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has some of the highest drug-use rates in the world. According to UN data, 14.4 percent of Nigerians aged 15 to 64 had used drugs in 2019 — more than double the global average. That figure is expected to rise, said Akanidomo Ibanga, Nigeria country project officer for the UNODC, citing widespread trafficking, conflict and high youth unemployment.
Yet treatment options are scarce. Six Nigerian states lack a single rehabilitation centre, and another nine have only one. The country of more than 200 million people has just 2,500 treatment beds, Ibanga said, leaving millions without support.
On the outskirts of Abuja, Vanguard Against Drug Abuse, a small rehab centre, provides therapy and counselling for a few hundred people each year. But its 600,000 naira ($400) monthly in-patient fee is well beyond the minimum wage. ‘The number we can help is not enough,’ founder Abraham Hope Omeiza told AFP.
Sierra Leone and Ghana under pressure
The drug trade is also reshaping local politics and markets in neighbouring states. In Sierra Leone, investigative reports have linked Dutch trafficker Jos Leijdekkers, wanted by Europol, to political elites, including associates of the president’s family.
Sierra Leone is meanwhile grappling with a surge in synthetic drug use. ‘Kush’, a cheap synthetic cannabinoid, has devastated young communities, while crack cocaine use is also spreading. The country’s only psychiatric hospital is overwhelmed, said Ibrahim Kargbo of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency.
In Ghana, cocaine has emerged as the most abused drug in the capital Accra, followed by heroin and crack, according to a 2021 survey. Tramadol, a synthetic opioid, has flooded local markets. A stronger variant known as ‘red’ has grown popular among poorer users who cannot afford heroin.
Maria-Goretti Ane Loglo, a researcher on drug use in Ghana, told AFP that the spread of tramadol had been driven by the success of heroin dealers.
One Ghanaian farmer, Nana Twum, said he initially used tramadol to boost his stamina at work but soon realised its harmful effects. ‘When I use them, I feel stronger… but I become weak when the drug wears off,’ he said. After seeking treatment at a hospital, he admitted the recovery ‘has not been easy, but I know it is the best choice’.
A region in crisis
Officials warn that without stronger prevention and rehabilitation systems, drug trafficking in west Africa will deepen the region’s public health crisis while entrenching criminal groups and corrupt networks.
‘West Africa is rapidly becoming a trafficking corridor,’ Sierra Leone’s drug enforcement agency cautioned. With European demand rising and regional institutions under strain, the challenge of drug abuse is only expected to grow.
