organized crime in africa

 

 

With a population of close to 1.4 billion people, the African continent bears a diverse cultural heritage, talents, multi-linguistic culture, a vast collection of natural resources, arable land and enough human resource to see its growth and development into an economic hub.

Like any other developing continent, the continent of Africa is not immune to the vice of organized crime, with its effects felt all over the African household. Resulting in trauma, fear, loss of life and property, civil unrest and despite this, we continuously rise, dust up and take on life believing and hoping to establish a better future for the next generation.

It's through our unbeaten and un-waved courage, resilient and endurance do we tackle life no matter what it throws onto our face. with the same Zeal and fighting spirit that we have acquired and embraced from our founding fathers the likes of; Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Abdel Nasser, Julius Nyerere, Thomas Sankara who all fought the basic minimal requirement for all African, the right to be liberated, mentally, economically, socially, and to be seen hear and addressed as equals on matters of governance in the international platform.

As a continent, the subject of organized crime, is quite extensive and cuts across the whole aspect of the human culture from; child trafficking, Drug trafficking, arm dealings, insurgency, banditry, money laundering and whose effect are not just felt within the continent but across the world.

To have a clear analogy of this menace, let focus on the case of drug trafficking. The illicit drug trafficking business is often fueled by the illegal arms trade across the continent as a result of the civil unrest and wars that different member state are involved in, on national level and beyond their borders.

with  a total of 54 member state, the continent of Africa as at 2019 based on a research done by, Stockholm international peace research institute, it was discovered that; ”at least 15 member state were involved in active armed conflicts, either within their border or beyond.

The conflict dynamics were rooted around, religion, natural resources, politics, ethnicity, ineffectiveness to derive basic yet important services to the citizens, inequality, marginalization and extreme counter-terrorism activities.”

Based on the above insight, it’s okay to say, these armed conflict that we face as a continent have created the demand for arms hence facilitating the continuous operation to train and gear up militia groups, bandits and insurgency with arms and necessary logistics to fuel and necessitate a full borne civil unrest or war, despite continuous efforts by government agencies to put at a halt illegal arms dealing.

The human brain isn’t immune to trauma, and as a result of continuous engagement and involvement in conflict, one tends to develop post-traumatic stress disorder and more so require a stimulant to make them feel numbed and less in touch with their current reality, more often filled with chaos and nightmares.

In order to offset such, experiences, it reaches a phase that such a person is dependent on using drugs to stay conscious and reliable ,therefore, such a person gets hooked on drugs  which can either be clinical or hard drugs.

Making it a viable and profitable market for drug dons to establish their business, without giving little to none consideration the effect of drug use, and drug trade to the larger community, but solely driven by profit for the criminal organization.

Hence the overall increase in insecurity. Since, to effectively command the drug market, the use of arms and arms conflict gets involved. As a result the arms trade and drug trafficking strives as the Drugs use and drug abuse gets deeply rooted into our society.

Organized crime, within the African borders is not just limited to arm dealing and drug trafficking, No! As a continent, we are dealing with the issue of human trafficking, child trafficking syndicate, sex trafficking, banditry, poaching, the rise of terrorist group, modern slavery whose growth and prosperity solemnly depends upon the arms and drug business, are some of challenges as a continent we strive to put an end to.

And, like any other types of business, making financial gain is the key motivation why such trans-continental groups formulate and are in existences. Despite the high income resulting from these ventures, the proprietors and partners don’t have the luxury to deposit their finances into any financial institution freely, without the governing agencies scrutinizing and authenticating the source of such monies.

And like the old adage states, necessity is the mother of invention, the need to evade the scrutiny from the government, organized crime sort of ways to mitigate this challenge and a brilliant idea was conceived, money laundering. An act of legitimizing their monies believed to be blood money, by creating franchisers, in the real world to act as a decoy and a channel to funnel their wealth into any financial institutions of their choice. This is highly favored by the continuous development in the information technology sector, which acts a swift and most reliable mode of transaction. 

After the money has been launder, the governments of the day find it hard to trace the source, and more often such is later transfer electronically to someone else or an organization and used to create civil unrest, wars or facilitate the buying, selling and payments of commodities in the underworld markets. And in the process, the government fails to earn its taxes, hence having limited economic growth and development with a nation.

Whenever the government lacks the financial capabilities to cater for the basic requirement of is citizen, its best strategy to mitigate and navigate through the issue, more often it tends to isolate an area, and focus whatever resources it can uphold on its apparatus and key infrastructure.

Such, an act creates a void, within the lives of the citizen and the community isolated and neglected and out of desperation organized groups emerge. Whose core values at first are anchored to see the prosperity and success of their area, for example, in-case of insecurity sanity is re-stalled, but as time pass, the delusion of power overcrowds the core values and greed sets in.

And as a result, such an organized group is divided and its aftermath is   chaos and violence, with all parties gunning to take full control of the area and its resources available. As it is in the human nature to identify with our own, when animosity kicks in logical thinking and reasoning become inapplicable and we tend to incline ourselves on the basis of tribe ,religion ,race, nationality color  to mention just a-few and view the other as the aggressor or the enemy. 

In such a scenario, politics is played at the expense of the rights and fundamental freedom of the parties involved. The political elite, will stand with their own and gaslight each other and if the situation goes unchecked, it does escalate, hindering the chance for dialogue and peace.

Its' during such situation, politician capitalize on creating   dispute, civil unrest and in the process they embezzle public finances and blame it on the dispute. For instant, the issue of bandit within the Kenyan rift-valley is more polarized, along ethnicity and more often the government trends lightly while dealing to avoid be accused of victimizing any particular community despite the banditry being a menace.

It's true to say that politic and politician across African borders, have facilitated and enabled the growth and prosperity of unorthodox ungoverned, organized group, who later end up shedding skin into criminal organization for their sole selfish gains, both in the political and financial arena.

To win the war against organized crime, within the African borders, first we need to acknowledge that it takes two to tango, and a collective effort by all member state towards this fight should be paramount. Since the damage brought about by organized crime out-weigh the benefits.

As a continent it’s high time, we take the bull by its horns, and addressed the key issues we are facing as continent. Issues such as unemployment, inequality, marginalization, counter terrorist activities and conflict to control available resources are some of the factors enabling the growth of organized crime within our borders.

 With a majority of the African population aged between 18-35 years been youths, young, vibrant and energetic this group also finds itself unemployed or with no reliable source of income to cater for their basic needs and that of their families. And out of sear desperation, these youth tend to find themselves at across road to either join criminal organization or seek out employment opportunities within its border or beyond.

On both case scenario the African youth is pre-disposed to mere mercies of the world they live in. For instant, if the African youth chooses to seek employment both within and beyond our borders, chances are locally he is likely to be exploited and underpaid for services provided, or even not being fully compensated for what its’ worth.

Such mistreatment if left unchecked makes the African youth, feel under-valued, disrespected, and to point of developing low esteem, and in order to feel his worthiness more often crime gets the best of them and becomes the villain.

In case he chooses to leave and find greener pasture abroad if unlucky or fails to do due diligence of the proposed job offer, employers’ history or place of work he or she falls victim of the human trafficking and modern slavery across the world, therefore, losing his or her sole dignity in life.

To win the war on unemployment and to restore sanity and  the dignity of our people, as government we need to prioritize on creating employment for our people and  holding utmost value for the African people at heart, our citizens.

As a continent and as an individual member state it’s highly recommended that we promote equity and equality among our citizens without perjure, favor ,discrimination or ill will and to uphold each and every ones’ human right and  fundamental freedom as stated in the governing statutory documents and in relations to the international human rights acts. Without taking in consideration, ones’ ethnicity, race, color, nationality, religion, status, gender or social affiliation.

By so doing we give chance, constructive and beneficial growth, success and prosperity of the African economics, backed upon by genuine investment and input by our people for our people, and one not dependable on crime.