Benin President Patrice Talon said yesterday that the government and armed forces had thwarted a coup attempt by a group of soldiers in the West African nation, vowing to punish those who carried it out.
Talon’s announcement came about 12 hours after gunfire first rang out in several neighbourhoods of Cotonou, the biggest city, and soldiers went on state television to claim they had removed Talon from power.
The rapid mobilisation of forces loyal to the government ‘allowed us to thwart these adventurers’, Talon said in his remarks aired on state television.
“This treachery will not go unpunished.”
The attempted coup was the latest threat to democratic rule in the region, where militaries have in recent years seized power in Benin’s neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as in Mali, Guinea and, only last month, Guinea-Bissau.
But it was a surprising development in Benin, where the last successful coup took place more than half a century ago, in 1972.
A government spokesperson, Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, earlier said that 14 people had been arrested in connection with the coup attempt, without providing details.
The coup attempt came as Benin was preparing for a presidential election in April that would mark the end of the tenure of incumbent Talon, in power since 2016.
In their televised statement, the coup plotters mentioned the deteriorating security situation in northern Benin ‘coupled with the disregard and neglect of our fallen brothers-in-arms’.
Talon has been credited with reviving the economy, but the country has also seen an increase in attacks by militants that have wreaked havoc in Mali and Burkina Faso.
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