A Warning for West Africa

The Benin Coup Attempt: A Crisis Years in the Making

Ten years of constitutional tinkering, regional destabilization and trans-border repression under President Patrice Talon made rupture unavoidable. The peace of West Africa now hinges on recognizing that the genuine threat to Benin did not start in the barracks.

We must condemn the botched coup in Benin. For those of us who have spent our careers upholding democratic governance, the rule of law and peaceful transfer of power, there is no doubt: Soldier interventions are an illegitimate breach with constitutional order and a slap in the face to the principles that Benin has followed since it declared its independence at the historic 1990 National Conference. I reject them unequivocally.

But condemnation itself is not enough, indeed, it is dangerously incomplete, if it does not address the underlying reality that created this crisis. The tragedy in Cotonou was not a sudden break with the past. It was an inevitable outcome, the result of a decade-long erosion of democratic institutions, constitutional subterfuge and a style of governance that was doing more than destabilize Benin; it was destabilizing the entire Gulf of Guinea and its security architecture at the subregional level. To condemn the coup without condemning the state of affairs that made it possible would be an exercise in strategic blindness.

The Systematic Dismantling of Democratic Institutions

The descent of Benin into instability was not sudden. Since 2016, the country has been systematically dismantling its own politics.

Benin did not fall into chaos overnight. The country has been dismantled so systematically since 2016. Upholding the independence of the judiciary also crumbled when a special court, CRIET (Criminal Court for the Prosecution of Crime Networks and Crimes against Humanity), was set up less to fight crime than to sideline opponents. The building of the competitive electoral process was gutted by rules that made it impossible for opposition parties to contest the 2019 legislative elections, producing a rubber-stamp parliament and the lowest voter turnout in history.

The legal arsenal was supplemented by the weaponisation of digital repression, forged cases and targeted prosecutions of high-profile personalities, including Reckya Madougou and Professor Joël Aïvo. These abuses were criticized by international bodies such as the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to which Benin responded by withdrawing from the jurisdiction of this institution.

Constitutional Engineering and the Closure of Political Space

While these processes of domestic disintegration unfolded, the government was also carrying out far-reaching constitutional and electoral reforms that lacked significant national consensus. In March 2024, a revision of the electoral law increased the sponsorship threshold for presidential hopefuls to 15 per cent of all elected officials, deputies and mayors, thereby ensuring it would be virtually impossible for opponents to qualify in a system that is already designed not to allow them to pass.

Then, in November 2025, Parliament adopted a comprehensive constitutional amendment that extended the duration of both presidencies and parliaments from five to seven years and instituted a new bicameral parliament that featured an appointed upper chamber. Under the reform, the upper house would comprise 25 to 30 members, including officials nominated and former presidents, with power as a second chamber of legislative review spanning the executive and judiciary. These amendments, which will apply for the first time in general elections as from 2026, deepen personalisation of political power and open new avenues through which President Patrice Talon could continue to play a role after stepping down, reinforcing the perception that the Republic’s constitutional architecture is being tailored for the ambitions of one man rather than that of the entire nation.

Exporting Repression Beyond Benin’s Borders

As space at home in Benin diminished, the government exported its repressive model across borders. Notable activist Steve Amoussou, better known under the stage moniker Frère Hounvi, was abducted in Lomé, Togo during the month of August 2024 by kidnappers who were traveling inside a Beninese diplomatic car. He was abducted to Cotonou and for two weeks disappeared, incommunicado but under the authority of the CRIET, an extraordinary extraterritorial assertion by the regime that it would chase its critics beyond national borders.

Months later, in April 2025, another dissident named Hugues Sossoukpè was kidnapped from Côte d’Ivoire, where he lived in Abidjan under similarly opaque circumstances and taken to Benin, which then held him without trial. These extraterritorial abductions were only a particularly barbaric expression of the fundamentally unsound society where internal dissent was criminalized and international borders were mere bureaucratic obstacles.

A Constitutional Coup and Its Consequences

This was not governance; it was a gentle, patient remodeling of a democratic state into an autocratic one under constitutional camouflage. What academics refer to as a “constitutional coup” had occurred before our eyes. It destroyed legitimacy, reduced the space for civic action and deprived citizens of peaceful ways to shape political results. The surprise is not that a military faction attempted a coup. The surprise is that it has taken so long.

The internal divide was accompanied by an irresponsible regional and international attitude. President Patrice Talon governed more and more by exclusion and division, and even instrumentalized regional identity as a weapon of political struggle. The consequence was a divided army, a bitterly polarized society and an elite that increasingly required external backing to offset its domestic legitimacy deficits.

Regional Intervention and Geopolitical Fallout

The coup attempt of December 2025 brought this fragility to the fore as never before: the very survival of the Beninese presidency hinged on direct and instantaneous military intervention by Nigeria, a neighboring state purporting to intervene in continuation of its duties as an ECOWAS member.

This has seminal geopolitical implications. For Nigeria, the regional hegemon, using armed force inside Benin marks a potential precedent for much more expansive actions down the road. Instead of calming the situation, it risks inflaming broad underlying tensions. Beninese military authorities will view this intervention as a violation of their national sovereignty and some parts of the civilian population will consider it domination.

A dormant nationalism in Beninese political culture could stir in reaction. The bitterness stirred by this episode is likely to erode Nigeria’s influence on its western border and muddy ECOWAS crisis-management frameworks for years.

France, the West, and Strategic Miscalculations

France as well has to re-evaluate its stance. President Emmanuel Macron has welcomed Mr. Talon as a modernizing technocrat who can help protect French interests in the Gulf of Guinea. But Paris has ignored the growing contradiction between Talon’s domestic rule, characterized by repression, judicial capture and efforts to secure a third term, and the security that France is trying to build. Talon said publicly in Paris that democracy “blocks decision,” and his subsequent constitutional tracings demonstrate this was no exaggeration but a political doctrine.

The willingness of France to turn a blind eye to these tendencies is fatally undermining its credibility at a time when anti-French feeling has been fermenting across the Sahel, where the AES alliance, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, see Benin as a strategic French corridor. In security terms, Talon’s posture pushes these countries to ramp up their threat perception and destabilize Benin’s northern frontier as a buffer. He is, in that regard, a strategic liability to France rather than an asset.

Implications for the Wider Western Alliance and ECOWAS

The implications extend to the wider Western alliance. The United States, the European Union and democratic partners should take care not to send a message that they will support Benin as the stable southern anchor of a region increasingly consumed by insecurity. In fact, the governance model established under Talon has eroded institutional resilience, exacerbated military grievances and created fertile ground for extremist exploitation.

U.S. and European engagement on counterterrorism and coastal security efforts will not succeed where institutions serve power rather than unity. Stability is not delivered by strongmen but by legitimacy, inclusion and accountability. Without these foundations, external assistance becomes a short-term plaster on an expanding structural crack.

It is an equally pivotal challenge for ECOWAS. The institution cannot credibly denounce military coups while tolerating constitutional coups that achieve the same outcome through legal manipulation. Its legitimacy lies in consistent defense of democratic norms. Reinforcing crisis management around incumbents alone risks backlash from publics and militaries and accelerates the shift toward alternative security blocs such as the AES.

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A Warning Beyond Benin

No matter how long I have lived in the United States, or how deeply I believe in open societies, I am biased toward democratic governance. That bias is not ideological; it is practical.

Countries that respect political competition and constitutional limits are safer and more reliable partners. Backing a government against its citizens, one that has dismantled democratic institutions, is bound to backfire. It will push Benin toward illiberal alliances, fuel anti-Western narratives and close space for constructive engagement.

If the free world truly wants stability in West Africa, it should start listening to the people of Benin. Benin does not need isolation. It needs a reset. Leadership must restore institutional integrity, rebuild trust with citizens and the military, and reassure neighbors that Benin will not become a proxy battlefield. No one will dictate who that leader should be, but it is increasingly clear who it cannot be.

The attempted coup is a warning, not just to Benin, but to all who approach West Africa through short-term partnerships rather than long-term governance realities. Democracies do not collapse overnight. They are eroded slowly, through breaches ignored until it is too late.

If the free world wants stability in West Africa, it must listen to Beninese voices and stop enabling a system that has brought the country to the brink.

By Amb. Omar Arouna

Arouna is the former Ambassador of the Republic of Benin to the United States, Mexico and the former Representative of the country to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization of American States. Ambassador Arouna is currently The Managing Partner of US-Africa Cybersecurity Group a cybersecurity management consultancy and the CEO of Global Specialty LLC a global business development consulting firm driven by providing advisory and operational services to organizations and their business communities seeking market entry and establishing business operations in Africa.

He serves as the President on the Advisory Board of the Pan-African Institute of Municipal Development a nonprofit organization established in 2021 to address gaps in workforce development, capacity building and leadership development in municipal governments in Africa.

Ambassador Arouna is a Commander of the National Order of Benin and has an MBA from The George Washington University. He is bilingual in French and English.