This is the “official” (modern) system that appears on the surface of things and increasingly perceived by the populace as alien and corrupt. But on the other hand there is the “unofficial” (traditional/cultural) system that operates beneath the surface.
Throughout West Africa there are traditional systems of governance together with their traditional laws, often in the form of taboos, having various sanctions and systems of institutional support. West Africans are used to shifting from one system to another whenever it is felt to be appropriate.
Legally, only the first exists; the second is barely acknowledged. But realistically the first is embedded within the second. The way the first is interpreted in any given situation depends on its understanding vis-à-vis the traditional system. The power of the second system, of course, arises from the fact that it is embedded in the traditional values and ethical concerns of the people, and its ultimate sanction lies in the unseen dimensions especially with the ancestors.
One may be ‘forced’ to observe the first, but one is morally obliged to observe the second. When it comes to harnessing the active involvement of the local community for complying with law enforcement we are without a doubt in the realm of the latter.
However, we need to examine some of the ramifications of such a legal duality: first, is the issue of ‘criminalization’. If what is called ‘criminal’ by the first system is not supported by the moral groundings of the second, it will not be regarded as ‘really’ criminal and people will not respond to it as such. If drugs are criminalized by West Africa’s political elites, this does not necessarily reflect the interests of all the peoples occupying what is now West Africa.[i]
Is it any wonder that local police, especially in rural areas, and especially if they are from that ethnic group, often side with or protect drug barons? They may be breaking the law but it is a Western law (borofo, borofo amamre) and is therefore not really regarded as something that works against the common good of Ghanaians.
From the perspective of the local communities they bring in much needed money and they perform a valuable service to the community of which they are upstanding members. In whatever way the community is organized it must have as its base the moral codes and values of the second institutional framework (the traditional one) and not the first.
Stephen Ellis also points to certain historical factors as partially explaining such gross disrespect for the (modern) law, including the enactment of certain laws during the colonial period that reclassified old practices between different ethnic groups as ‘criminal.’ As a result, when newly independent states re-enacted these laws, the overall populace who believed there was no moral or legitimate justification to obey the law largely ignored these.
What is the extent of institutionalisation.
A useful starting point for understanding the survivability and growth of the narcotics trade across West Africa is by examining the networks of social capital that underpin this industry and which fosters a sense of community closeness and acceptance among traffickers and a protective mechanism for the communities within which they are located.
The apparent success of this industry in terms of its capacity to grow while concurrently outwitting the law can be explained by a strong sense of social capital that represents the norms of mutual engagement that ensures reciprocity, although not necessarily institutionalized forms of reciprocal expectations.
This sense of social capital and reciprocity, forms a major reason why this trade has survived and is protected by the communities within which they are located. Basically, the reality of the public discourse on drugs trafficking in all ECOWAS member states is that, while one group see this as a threat, another sees it as an important part of their means of livelihood and achieving societal status. Conceptually the point is how to resolve competing/clashing perceptual agendas
A second major argument is that because a degree of social capital exists in all the communities where such narcotics trafficking occur, entering the ‘closed’ world of traffickers is not only difficult but can be dangerous to outsiders. In this particular business, there tends to be some amount of mutual trust that in turn promotes cooperation between local communities and societal economic actors in the process of shared knowledge, growth and economic spin-offs.
Thus, the levels of cooperation among different stakeholders that have been experienced throughout West Africa, it has been argued, is also aided by the frequency of social capital, which are ‘features of social organization such as networks, norms, and trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation’(Putnam, 1993).
How and why have narcotics traffickers in Ghana and the wider ECOWAS sub-region managed to survive the onslaught of successive governmental agencies that have consistently seen them as a threat to state and societal security? Available evidence suggests that social capital plays an important role in the process of supply, sale and profits accruing from the sale of drugs.
Stocks of social capital in the form of associational activity, social networks, trust and behavioural norms can be linked to improved output and better performance in terms of growth, investment and productivity at the individual and group enterprise levels.
The role of social capital in the processes of narcotics trafficking in Ghana and West Africa is impressive. While different definitions of social capital exist, in this paper, the term primarily means social relations based on trust and the development of norms and values that support and are supported by such social relations.
Thus, in this paper, social capital is defined in terms of the number, diversity and strength of the social relations maintained by those involved in the complex processes of narcotics trafficking. In its more general sense as applied by Putnam, it means the pervasiveness of particular norms of reciprocity, the assurance of principles and rules of practice.
In a practical sense, therefore, traffickers with better-performing networks traffic more drugs than is presently known, as the information provided so far is only indicative of the general trends in Ghana and the sub-region. These networks should be understood as a substitute for formal market-supporting institutions.
