Benin was thrust into uncertainty on Friday after a group of soldiers appeared on national television to announce that they had removed President Patrice Talon from power, suspended the constitution, and sealed the country’s borders and airspace. The broadcast was brief but jarring, interrupting regular programming with a declaration that the military had taken control.
Soon after, the French Embassy reported gunfire near the president’s residence in Cotonou, adding to the tension rippling across the commercial capital. But officials close to Talon moved quickly to downplay the claims, describing the soldiers as an isolated faction without the support of the broader armed forces.
“The situation is under control,” Foreign Minister Shegun Adjadi Bakari told Reuters, insisting that most of the army remained loyal to the government and was already acting to restore order. A presidency official, speaking anonymously to AFP, dismissed the mutineers as “a small group of people who only control the television,” assuring the public that both the city and country remained secure.
In their televised statement, the soldiers said Lieutenant-Colonel Tigri Pascal would head a military transition council, accusing President Talon of mismanaging the nation. Talon, 67, a wealthy businessman once dubbed the “king of cotton,” is due to leave office next year after two terms, with elections scheduled for April. He has pledged not to run again and has already named a successor.
The French Embassy urged its citizens to remain indoors until the situation becomes clearer.
The attempted power grab is particularly striking in Benin, long regarded as one of West Africa’s more stable democracies. Despite its political calm, the country remains among the poorest in the world, though it is one of Africa’s largest cotton producers.
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This apparent coup comes shortly after the ouster of President Umaro Sissoco Embaló in neighboring Guinea-Bissau, adding to a troubling pattern across the region. In recent years, military takeovers in Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, and Niger have raised fears of democratic backsliding, while insurgent groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaeda continue pressing southward into coastal states, including Benin.
As of Friday evening, the question hanging over the country was whether the attempted coup was a fleeting broadcast—or the first sign of a deeper rupture in one of the region’s last democratic strongholds.
