THE DISMISSAL of Liberia Drug Enforcement Company (LDEA) Director Normal Anthony Ok. Souh and his prime deputies — Gwee Forkpa and Sebastian Farr — is the most recent in a protracted line of management shakeups at one of many nation’s most embattled establishments.
ANNOUNCED ON August 28, President Joseph Boakai stated the transfer was for “administrative causes.” However past the official language lies a extra troubling fact — Liberia’s struggle on medicine is being misplaced not due to an absence of political appointments, however due to a system so damaged that changing people does little to handle the underlying rot.
THE LDEA isn’t just one other authorities company. It stands on the frontline of a nationwide emergency that has morphed from a well being disaster right into a full-blown safety menace. Liberia is awash with narcotics, its youth ensnared in habit, and whole neighborhoods lowered to zones of criminality and despair.
AT THE middle of this storm is an company meant to guard the nation from the grip of medication. However removed from being a pillar of enforcement, the LDEA has grow to be a logo of dysfunction, infighting, and deep-rooted corruption.
PRESIDENT BOAKAI got here into workplace promising to prioritize the anti-drug struggle, however almost two years in, his administration remains to be struggling to stabilize the very establishment tasked with finishing up that mission. The fixed reshuffling of LDEA management — with administrators dismissed, deputies suspended, and interim groups rotated in — has paralyzed the company.
THERE HAS been no continuity of technique, no sustained momentum, and no rebuilding of public belief. Each few months, a brand new face is put in, and the outdated issues return. The newest interim staff, composed of officers seconded from the Liberia Nationwide Police and Nationwide Safety Company, is yet one more momentary repair that lacks the political insulation and institutional grounding to ship long-term reform.
THE CURRENT disaster didn’t start with Souh. It has been years within the making. In early 2024, President Boakai appointed Abraham Kromah to steer the company. His tenure was short-lived however eventful. Kromah’s management descended into chaos following a bitter feud together with his deputy, Hassan Fadiga.
WHAT BEGAN as administrative disagreements rapidly turned a public spectacle, with Fadiga accusing Kromah of tribal favoritism, defending drug traffickers, and violating established procedures. Kromah, in flip, charged Fadiga with insubordination and leaking categorized info.
THE SITUATION spiraled additional when Fadiga allegedly brandished a firearm contained in the company compound, resulting in police intervention. It was a second that encapsulated the disintegration of order inside the LDEA.
THE DAMAGE was not restricted to personnel drama. The fallout from the Kromah-Fadiga dispute led to a lack of confidence amongst worldwide companions. America and the United Nations Workplace on Medication and Crime — each important supporters of Liberia’s anti-drug efforts — quietly withdrew funding and help.
IT WAS a transparent sign that the worldwide neighborhood not noticed the LDEA as a reputable accomplice. President Boakai finally dismissed Kromah, Fadiga, and their fellow deputy Gbawou Kowou, hoping to reset the company’s management. However what adopted underneath Anthony Ok. Souh proved to be extra of the identical.
RATHER THAN stabilizing the company, Souh’s management was quickly engulfed in new controversies. His personal deputy, Sebastian Farr, authored a damning inside report that accused two senior officers of finishing up unlawful operations, utilizing unregistered weapons, extorting suspects, and leaking confidential info.
FARR FURTHER alleged that these officers had tried to bribe him. He warned that morale amongst junior officers was crumbling, and that the general public had misplaced confidence within the company. But as a substitute of being empowered to reform the establishment, Farr too turned entangled within the infighting and was in the end dismissed alongside the very people he had accused.
THIS PATTERN — of management biking out and in with little change — reveals a deeper institutional failure. The actual drawback shouldn’t be who leads the LDEA, however what sort of establishment they’re requested to steer. At its core, the LDEA is structurally damaged. Greater than half of its personnel are unpaid volunteers. These people, missing coaching and monetary assist, are anticipated to confront more and more subtle and well-funded drug trafficking networks.
THIS IMBALANCE isn’t just a query of effectiveness; it’s a query of equity and security. Volunteers can’t be held to skilled requirements if they don’t seem to be given the assets, coaching, or protections {that a} functioning regulation enforcement officer requires.
AND THEN there may be the problem of complicity. Gwee Forkpa, one of many just lately dismissed deputies, shocked the nation when he acknowledged at a Ministry of Info briefing that drug trafficking is enabled by actors throughout all three branches of presidency. In accordance with him, “once you’re preventing medicine, you’re preventing folks in every single place.” His assertion was a chilling affirmation of what many within the public already believed — that the issue isn’t just on the road stage, however inside the corridors of energy.
HIS REMARKS weren’t with out priority. In 2022, LDEA Commander Martha Massaley testified earlier than the Home of Representatives {that a} sitting legislator had been caught trafficking medicine however confronted no penalties. She collapsed earlier than finishing her assertion and by no means returned to supply additional testimony.
THAT INCIDENTS, mixed with Forkpa’s allegations, paints a grim image of high-level impunity. Regardless of the gravity of those claims, there have been no significant investigations, no arrests, and no efforts to publicly account for the accusations.
ALL THE whereas, the drug disaster worsens. In accordance with a 2023 UNFPA examine, one in 5 Liberian youth use narcotics. Monrovia alone has greater than 866 recognized drug dens, many working with obvious impunity. The drug economic system has grow to be a parallel system, undermining the legit economic system and feeding right into a broader tradition of violence, theft, and social decay.
PRESIDENT BOAKAI’S authorities has promised funding for remedy and rehabilitation, however implementation has been painfully gradual. Of the US$3.5 million pledged earlier this yr, solely a fraction has reached service suppliers. Simply 163 people have reportedly acquired remedy by authorities assist — a fraction of these in want.
INTO THIS chaos stepped the interim management staff: DCP Fitzgerald T. M. Biago, NSA’s Ernest T. Tarpeh, and ACP Patrick B. Kormazu. Whereas these males deliver expertise and order, they don’t seem to be miracle employees. Their project is to stabilize a damaged company in simply 90 days. However even probably the most competent management can not reform a construction constructed on dysfunction, particularly if they’re working underneath the identical political pressures and systemic constraints that crippled their predecessors.
HISTORY shouldn’t be on their facet.
LIBERIA HAS had interim groups earlier than, and usually, they served merely to purchase time quite than enact actual reform. What Liberia wants now shouldn’t be one other spherical of replacements. It wants a change. The LDEA have to be professionalized, depoliticized, and adequately funded. A clear and unbiased course of have to be established for appointing its leaders — one that’s primarily based on advantage, not loyalty or tribal affiliation.
ALLEGATIONS OF drug trafficking involving high-ranking officers have to be investigated critically and publicly, irrespective of the associated fee. The company’s reliance on unpaid volunteers should finish, and a strong accountability mechanism have to be launched to make sure public belief is rebuilt.
FURTHERMORE, Liberia should actively work to revive its standing with worldwide companions. The worldwide neighborhood has assets, experience, and funding to supply — however solely to establishments that show integrity and competence. Regaining this belief would require motion, not phrases. Interim groups could keep primary order, however solely brave reforms will save the LDEA from everlasting irrelevance.
LIBERIA STANDS at a harmful crossroads. The price of inaction shouldn’t be theoretical — it’s already being paid in overdoses, damaged houses, rising crime, and misplaced futures. The LDEA, in its present state, can not meet the problem. Management reshuffles usually are not sufficient. The Boakai administration should decide to systemic change or threat presiding over a disaster that can outline a technology.
THE TIME for momentary options is over. Liberia should select between significant reform and continued collapse. Its youth, its communities, and its future depend upon that selection.
