COTONOU, Benin — Soldiers who seized state television in Benin briefly announced they had seized power and ousted President Patrice Talon on Sunday in a dramatic coup attempt that laid bare deep political tensions in the West African country. Mutinous troops loyal to a group calling itself the “Military Committee for Refoundation” seized the airwaves to declare national institutions defunct before being silenced by loyalist forces that moved to reclaim positions of power, Dec. 7, 2025.
VIDEO: Benin coup attempt played out live on state TV
At least eight soldiers in fighting fatigues and helmets appeared on the state broadcaster ORTB, reading a statement that dissolved all state institutions, suspended the constitution and closed Benin’s land, air and sea borders while naming Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri as head of the new junta, Reuters reported from Libreville, Gabon (where the government operates for much of each day) and The Associated Press added from Paris. The officers assured what they termed “a truly new era” based on fraternity, justice and work — words that echoed the rhetoric of other military coups that have swept West and Central Africa since 2020.
Just hours later, though, government officials sought to portray the broadcast as a botched coup attempt rather than a successful one. On Friday, a panicky-sounding Foreign Minister Olushegun Adjadi Bakari told reporters that there had been “an attempt at coup, but the situation is under control,” referring to the rebels as “a small group” whose impact was essentially restricted to taking over the television compound while maintaining that most of the army and national guard were still loyal to Talon.
Subsequent statements from the presidency and local media indicated that Talon was safe and that loyalist troops had “repulsed” the mutineers, with security forces patrolling central Cotonou as a semblance of calm returned to the streets. The French embassy told people to stay indoors and avoid the city centre at different points throughout Benin’s coup drama this day, in which residents reported hearing intense gunfire near Camp Guezo and also in neighbourhoods adjacent to the port and presidential area.
Benin coup bid looms on the eve of disputed 2026 poll.
The coup attempt in Benin comes just months before an April 2026 presidential election that is supposed to see Talon leave office after two terms, a rare adherence to constitutional norms in a region where some leaders have rewritten the rules of their political systems to keep power. Parliament has recently passed a controversial constitutional reform increasing presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years, in addition to creating a new Senate — changes that opponents say may let Talon and his allies, including ruling-coalition candidate Romuald Wadagni, remain in power long after he leaves office, according to an AP report on the reforms.
Even before the Benin coup scare on Sunday, the country struggled with questions about declining political space. One recent report by Democracy in Africa detailed the expulsion of opposition parties from elections, the arrest of protesters and pressure on critical media since Talon, a businessman once described as the “cotton king of Cotonou,” won office in 2016, arguing that Benin has gone from being a regional model for democracy to an obvious case of backsliding.
Historical plots and regional ‘coup belt’ prism to today’s shock
The alleged coup also comes after a suspected plot in September 2024, when authorities arrested former Sports Minister Oswald Homeky, wealthy businessman and Talon associate Olivier Boko and the head of the Republican Guard, accusing them of plotting to bribe soldiers to allow an overthrow. Homeky had been arrested delivering sacks of money to the guard commander in advance of a planned Sept. 27 operation, according to prosecutors and a statement from 2024 that Reuters reported. A court in January sentenced Boko and Homeky to 20 years each in prison on charges of conspiring against state security and corruption, a landmark ruling that opposition figures criticised as politically motivated.
The attempted coup in Benin on Sunday now puts the country squarely inside West Africa’s so-called “coup belt,” already comprising Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon and Guinea-Bissau, among others, where militaries have either overthrown civilian governments or tried to in recent years. Analysts caution that regional contagion, jihadist violence in northern Benin and growing popular anger over governance have created a dangerous nexus fuelling unrest if civilian leaders and security forces fail to win public confidence.
Officials here in Cotonou for now maintain that the worst of Benin’s recent upheaval has passed, but the swiftness with which a few soldiers transformed a state television studio into the site of an attempted Benin coup is a reminder of how thin a veneer of stability in Benin has become — and how closely its next election will be watched across an already watchful region.
