Coup attempt in Benin thwarted, says interior minister

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Benin has foiled a coup attempt, the interior minister said, after armed soldiers went on national television to say they had taken over the West African country and ousted its president, Patrice Talon.

Alassane Seidou, minister of interior and public security, subsequently made a short statement on television saying that the army remained loyal and the plot had been thwarted.

“In the early morning . . . a small group of soldiers launched a mutiny with the aim of destabilising the state and its institutions,” he said. “Faced with this situation, the Beninese Armed Forces and their leadership, true to their oath, remained committed to the republic,” he added, without providing details.

The French and American embassies both reported gunfire around the presidential residence near Cotonou, the commercial capital, and warned their citizens to stay indoors.

The battle to control the airwaves began early on Sunday, when soldiers went on national television to announce they had taken over the country, in what would be the third coup in Africa in as many months.

Dressed in green military fatigues and brandishing weapons, a group of at least eight soldiers said they had ousted Talon and replaced him with Lieutenant Colonel Pascal Tigri to lead a newly formed “Military Committee for Refoundation”.

The constitution had been suspended, they said, and all borders and airspace had been closed.

However, a spokesperson for the presidency later said “the putschists no longer control the national television”.

In October, a faction of Madagascar’s armed forces took over, ousting President Andry Rajoelina. Last month, the army of Guinea-Bissau said it had arrested President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, but regional leaders accused the president of masterminding a fake putsch.

Several countries in West Africa, including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, have become military dictatorships in recent years. Guinea, which had a coup in 2021, is holding presidential elections this month, which Mamadi Doumbouya, who led the putsch four years ago, is expected to win. The main opposition has also been banned.

In Benin, Talon, 67, a businessman known as the “king of cotton”, was due to step down next April after two terms in office. He has said he would leave as planned, though the constitutional court has banned the main opposition party from participating in elections.

Talon has named his finance minister, Romuald Wadagni, architect of ambitious economic reforms, as his preferred successor.

West Africa has been bristling with coup rumours in recent years, but Benin has rarely been mentioned as one of the countries potentially vulnerable to military takeover.

In common with other West African coastal states, it has seen jihadist activity in the north as conflict in the Sahel, a semi-desert strip beneath the Sahara, spills over its borders.

Benin, Africa’s biggest cotton producer, has performed fairly well economically in recent years, with annual growth rates of about 6-7 per cent.

Talon and Wadagni have attempted to industrialise the country by establishing a garment industry to process raw cotton. They have also sought to attract foreign investment to industrial zones to process agricultural products such as cashews and to start light manufacturing of items including tiles, wigs and electric motorbikes.