1. The NIDC was not simply an informal committee
The strongest new evidence of the history and progress of Liberia efforts in fighting drugs and crimes is the actual then Liberian legislation.
By: Cllr. Joseph K. Jallah, Senator of Lofa County and first director of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) under former President Charles Taylor between 1997-2000
The 1998 Act creating the Drug Enforcement Agency contains a historical preamble stating that, because illicit drug trafficking and related crimes threatened Liberia’s economy, stability and security, the then Council of State, acting as the Transitional Executive Authority, created and established the National Inter-Ministerial Drug Committee and its Secretariat on June 2, 1995:
“to deal with all drug control matters on behalf of the Government of Liberia.”
That is extremely important. It means that the NIDC should not be portrayed merely as an ad hoc donor-supported project. By 1995 it had a formal governmental policy mandate.
The same Act subsequently states that the NIDC “is hereby dissolved” and transfers the specialized narcotics functions of the Liberia National Police and National Security Agency to the new Drug Enforcement Agency.
Thus, the legal institutional sequence became much clearer:
- The then Liberia Council of State
- NIDC and Secretariat
- Legislative establishment of DEA
- Dissolution of NIDC
- Transfer of specialized narcotics personnel and functions to the DEA
2. 1995 — Creation of the NIDCDomestic institutional development
The then Liberia Council of State headed by our law school professor, His Excellency David Kpomakpor created the NIDC under the then minister of Justice, Cllr. J. Laveli Supuwood and its Secretariat under the auspices of Attorney-At-Law now Senator of Lofa County, Cllr. Joseph K. Jallah on June 2, 1995. Its mandate was unusually broad: it was established to deal with “all drug control matters” for the Government of Liberia.
That language is significant because it suggests that the NIDC was intended to be the national coordinating mechanism for drug policy, not simply another police unit.
13. This resolves the 1998/1999 confusion
The actual Liberian legislative text reproduces the Act and says: Approved December 23, 1998.
Therefore, for the definitive history, We would use December 23, 1998 as the legally documented establishment/dissolution event. This is exactly why our instruction to verify the chronology through actual legal instruments was correct.
14. NIDC — International Relationship Map, 1995–1998
The evidence now allows us to visualize the NIDC years this way:
GOVERNMENT OF LIBERIA
│
▼
NATIONAL INTER-MINISTERIAL DRUG
COMMITTEE (NIDC)
Created June 2, 1995
│
┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
UNDCP ECOWAS LIBERIAN
Technical & Regional Drug Ministries/
material Control Policy Security
assistance & coordination agencies
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ Praia Plan 1997 │
│ ECODRUG Fund 1998 │
│ │ │
└────────────────┼────────────────┘
│
▼
REGIONAL / INTERNATIONAL
DRUG-CONTROL NETWORK
│
┌────────────────┼─────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
Nigeria UN System U.S.
NDLEA UNDCP/UNODC broader
security/
law-enforcement
cooperation
│
▼
DECEMBER 23, 1998
│
▼
DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY
(DEA)
│
▼
NIDC DISSOLVED
15. What the NIDC actually represented
This new evidence allows us to characterize the NIDC much more precisely. The NIDC was:
- A national coordinating institution: It was established to deal with all drug-control matters on behalf of the Government.
- A regional implementation point: It operated within the ECOWAS system of interministerial drug-control committees.
- A UN-supported institution: UNDCP supported training, equipment and operational capacity, according to contemporary 1996 reporting.
- A security institution operating amid civil conflict: Its work took place while Liberia’s state institutions, borders and security structures were severely compromised.
- A predecessor to specialized enforcement: The 1998 Act deliberately replaced/dissolved the NIDC and created a specialized DEA with transferred narcotics personnel from LNP and NSA.
16. The NIDC was not the LDEA
This is now legally clear. The distinction should read:
- NIDC: National inter-ministerial coordination and policy mechanism.
- DEA/LDEA: A specialized statutory drug-enforcement agency.
The transformation was therefore not merely a name change. It involved a genuine institutional transformation:
- A new statutory institution
- New organizational structure
- Specialized leadership
- Transfer of narcotics personnel
- Transfer of investigative functions
- Dissolution of the NIDC
17. The role of ECOWAS
The ECOWAS relationship should be given its own section in the final report because the regional body was doing several things simultaneously:
- 1996: Recognized the growing drug-trafficking problem and called for a ministerial response.
- 1997: Adopted the Praia Political Declaration and Regional Plan of Action and called for strengthened UNDCP support.
- 1997: Provided funding support and required Member States to strengthen their interministerial committees.
- 1998: Established the ECODRUG regional fund because national interministerial committees lacked sufficient resources.
So ECOWAS was not a peripheral actor. It was part of the institutional architecture within which the NIDC operated.
18. The role of UNDCP
The UNDCP role is even more direct. The 1996 contemporary record gives us concrete assistance:
- Training of 10 officers
- Computers
- Material assistance
- Vehicle
The later UNODC evaluation also identifies an UNDCP regional assistance program under AD/RAF/94/893.
Thus, for the final study, I would characterize UNDCP as: the principal documented international technical-support partner of the NIDC during the period for which we currently have direct evidence.
19. The role of the United States
Our present evidence supports a more cautious but still significant conclusion. During 1996–1998, U.S. engagement included:
- Liberia-related security cooperation
- Police professionalization through U.S. Department of Justice/ICITAP assistance
- Broader U.S. concern regarding narcotics and transnational organized crime in Africa
- Cooperation with African law-enforcement authorities
However, direct U.S. sponsorship of NIDC has not yet been demonstrated from the evidence located so far. Therefore, our documentary classification should be:
- UNDCP → DIRECTLY DOCUMENTED NIDC SUPPORT.
- ECOWAS → DIRECTLY DOCUMENTED REGIONAL POLICY/FINANCING ENVIRONMENT.
- United States → DOCUMENTED BROADER LAW-ENFORCEMENT/SECURITY PARTNERSHIP.
That is the historically defensible position.
20. The NIDC chronology we should now use
| Date | Event | Evidence Status |
|---|---|---|
| June 2, 1995 | Council of State creates NIDC and Secretariat | Primary Liberian legal text |
| 1996 | NIDC operating; Joseph Jallah identified as head | Contemporary newspaper |
| 1996 | UNDCP supports NIDC; trains 10 officers and provides equipment/vehicle | Contemporary newspaper |
| 1996 | Liberia cooperates with Nigeria NDLEA | Contemporary newspaper |
| 1996 | ECOWAS identifies increasing regional drug trafficking and calls for ministerial response | ECOWAS official record |
| 1997 | ECOWAS adopts Praia Political Declaration and Regional Plan of Action | ECOWAS official record |
21. One more historical point we should investigate
The current LDEA website states that its predecessor began as the National Drug Committee of the Interim Government of National Unity in 1995, during the Council of State chaired by Prof. David Kpomakpor under Cllr. J. Laveli Supuwood as Minister of Justice.
The actual 1998 Act says that the National Inter-Ministerial Drug Committee was created by the Council of State on June 2, 1995. Rather than choosing one and discarding the other, We think our definitive history should use the actual institutional sequence:
1995: National Inter-Ministerial Drug Committee
↓
1998: Drug Enforcement Agency
This sequence reconciles records beautifully, as the archival evidence confirms it. In other words, 1995 marks the earliest predecessor and the legally documented NIDC, while 1998 marks the statutory conversion to the DEA.
My recommendation for the definitive Senate history
I believe we now have enough evidence to make the NIDC chapter considerably stronger than the earlier version. The chapter should be titled:
- “The National Inter-Ministerial Drug Committee (NIDC), 1995–1998: Liberia’s Pre-LDEA National Drug-Control Institution and Its ECOWAS–UNDCP–International Partnerships.”
Then we should add a separate subsection:
- “The United States Connection: Law-Enforcement and Security Cooperation During the NIDC Era”
This subsection will clearly distinguish documented U.S. assistance to Liberian law enforcement generally from NIDC-specific assistance that still requires confirmation.
The other search should concentrate specifically on 1995–1998 U.S. State Department/INL records, U.S. Embassy Monrovia cables and Congressional records, UNDCP project AD/RAF/94/893, ECOWAS IDCC records, and Liberian Council of State/NIDC records. That is where we are most likely to find the missing names, meetings, travel, budgets, training missions, and actual institutional correspondence.
This is now a much stronger foundation for the historical section—and, importantly, the December 23, 1998 date is supported by the actual Liberian Act.
The NIDC and the American Community-Based Anti-Drug Movement
Turn Around America, Herman Wrice and the NIDC’s U.S. Community Partnerships, 1996–1998
A. Introduction
The history of Liberia’s National Inter-Ministerial Drug Committee (NIDC) should not be presented solely as a history of governmental and multilateral cooperation. During the NIDC period, Liberia was also exposed to a different dimension of the American drug-control experience: community-based anti-drug organizing.
This dimension is particularly significant because the NIDC was operating in a country where the State’s institutional capacity was severely constrained by civil conflict. It therefore had an interest not only in enforcement institutions, but also in:
- Community mobilization
- Youth prevention
- Public education
- Local leadership
- Neighborhood-based anti-drug action
- Rehabilitation and prevention
- Partnerships between citizens and law enforcement
The organization most closely associated with this aspect of the NIDC’s American engagement was Turn Around America (TAA), founded by Philadelphia community activist Dr. Herman Wrice. Independent accounts identify Wrice as the founder of Turn Around America and describe its model as an effort to organize communities against drug dealing, crime, and neighborhood deterioration.
B. Herman Wrice and the Turn Around America Model
Dr. Herman Wrice emerged from Philadelphia’s community-based anti-drug movement. His approach was based upon the proposition that communities themselves could take an active role in resisting drug dealers and reclaiming neighborhoods.
The model included:
- Community organization
- Neighborhood vigilance
- Public demonstrations against drug markets
- Youth engagement
- Neighborhood clean-up
- Cooperation with police
- Public education
- Development of local leaders
A retrospective account of Wrice’s work states that by 1996 he had trained anti-drug activists in approximately 350 communities, demonstrating the extraordinarily broad reach of his community-based model. A separate account of Turn Around America’s development confirms that Wrice’s work was extended through training and technical assistance to community organizations in numerous locations.
The significance for Liberia is that the NIDC was exposed to an approach which complemented formal government enforcement: Government enforcement attacks the trafficking structure; community organization attacks the social environment in which drug markets survive.
C. Andy Garr and the Turn Around America Connection
The NIDC’s institutional history identifies Andy Garr as another important figure associated with the Turn Around America partnership.
Contemporary and later accounts of the Wrice model also identify Andy Garr as participating in the expansion of Wrice’s community-based anti-drug training. One organizational history states that Wrice and Andy Garr traveled to Columbus to train local groups in the “Wrice Process” for combating drug trafficking.
For the Liberian historical record, this is relevant because the NIDC partnership was not simply an observation of an American program. Rather, the account supplied for this study indicates that the NIDC teamed up with Turn Around America, bringing the Liberian drug-control experience into contact with American community-based anti-drug activists.
The precise dates, memoranda, itinerary, and participants should be confirmed from NIDC and TAA records.
D. Philadelphia — The First Community Connection
Philadelphia appears to have been an important point of contact because Herman Wrice’s movement originated there. The NIDC’s engagement with Turn Around America should therefore be understood against Philadelphia’s experience with drug markets, neighborhood deterioration, and community mobilization.
Wrice’s Philadelphia work had already demonstrated that citizens could organize collectively against drug activity while maintaining working relationships with law-enforcement agencies. Independent documentation describes Turn Around America as a national network that expanded Wrice’s neighborhood anti-drug approach to communities in multiple states.
NIDC significance
For Liberia, the Philadelphia connection provided an alternative model: Anti-drug policy was not exclusively a government responsibility; the community itself could become an active partner.
The LMHRA asked the press to continue public-interest reporting and to help amplify instructions on how consumers can check product registration, report suspected adverse events, and avoid buying medicines from informal or uncertified vendors.
The authority will submit the operational plan to the MFDP for consolidation and approval.
