Nearly 50 tons of cocaine are being transported through West Africa, according to the latest United Nations estimate. This is strange, given the region is not a producer of the drug, nor is it a consumer as the vast majority of its people are quite poor. Nevertheless, the drug trade carries the potential to corrupt the region's fragile states:
Several West African countries risk becoming narco-states: undermined by drug money their nascent institutions are stillborn. This is a global concern because this part of Africa provides resources that the world depends on, including oil. The U.S. gets almost one fifth of its crude from Africa.
"Already we have seen how the impact of drugs has affected the judiciary, the police, customs and political parties," says Kwesi Aning at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra. He says Ghana and Guinea-Bissau are the two main cocaine hubs in West Africa. Aning says the drug trade is a threat to Ghana, which currently is an oasis of political and economic stability in a volatile region.