By Festus Poquie
They came to fight drug. In five months, drug overpowered and defeated them. The Generals have abandoned the battlefield, leaving ‘Kush’ and ‘Zombie’ combined forces to celebrate in grand style while the Commander-in- Chief weeps in despair.
President Joseph Boakai’s frontline commanders in the war against harmful narcotic substances are entangled in the web of drug trafficking conspiracy accusations.
On Monday, there was a civil war at the headquarters of the Liberia National Drug Enforcement Agency in Monrovia, with rival factions within the entity hierarchy feuding with guns. It’s not clear why the LDEA commanders will be so bitter with each other to the extent that death stood nearby.
Hassan Fadiga, deputy director for operation and Gbawou Kowou, deputy for administration have complained to the Attorney General that the head of the agency, Director Abraham Kromah is recruiting ex-rebel soldiers and shielding drug lords. Kromah has rejected the accusations.
President Boakai, currently in South Korea has commissioned an investigation into the matter. He has suspended the three top officials – Kromah, Fadiga and Kowou describing their conduct and activates as “unacceptable acts of disorder and chaos that threaten public peace and undermine the Government’s fight against illicit drugs.”
What this means?
While commanders are betraying their oath of law enforcement, cheap, synthetic drugs, locally known as Kush and zombie are tearing the country’s youthful population apart.
On 31 January, President Boakai declared the proliferation of drugs and substance abuse as National Health Emergency, announcing series of measures to eradicate the epidemic that is taking a plague on the country’s youthful population. National secretariat has been constituted to draw strategies to guide the war against drug.
Liberia and other West African countries have become soft targets for drug traffickers.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, at least 50 tons of cocaine from the Andean countries are transiting West Africa every year, heading north where they are worth almost $2 billion on the streets of European cities.
Most cocaine entering Africa from South America makes landfall around Guinea-Bissau in the north and Ghana in the south. Much of the drugs are shipped to Europe by drug mules on commercial flights. Upon arrival, the cocaine is predominantly distributed by West African criminal networks throughout Europe.
In October 2022, Liberia’s joint security forces aided by American and Brazilian authorities seized a huge consignment of 520-kilograms drugs with a street value of about $100 million United States dollars, which landed through the country’s main seaport – the Freeport of Monrovia.
