Attempted coup in Benin symptom of institutional weaknesses in West Africa region, UNSC hears

The attempted coup in Benin earlier this month should be seen as a wake up call for institutional reform, the UN Security Council heard on Thursday. 

While the swift response from West African allies in ECOWAS helped to foil the takeover, UN and Beninese officials said the attempt was a symptom of fundamental problems. 

“Experience across the region shows that governance reforms perceived as exclusionary erode legitimacy and fuel popular discontent," Barrie Freeman, Deputy Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel, said when she joined the meeting via videolink.

"The 7 December coup attempt in Benin, so close to presidential and legislative elections scheduled for early 2026, further underscores the need for broad consultation and transparency on constitutional and governance reform processes.”

Benin’s Ambassador to the UN said the issues that led to the attempted overthrow are present across West Africa - a region that has seen a number of failed and successful coups in recent years.

“The event of the 7th of December must not be analyzed in isolation," Marc Hermanne Gninadoou Araba, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Benin to the United Nations, said.

"They form part of a regional context marked by persistent institutional weakness, in which the prevention of disruptions to the constitutional order remains a major collective challenge. In a context where certain regional mechanisms are weakened or inoperative, the United Nations remains the central multilateral framework for documenting facts, exercising collective vigilance, and preventing any escalation.”

'Thugs and small-time terrorists'

Also on Thursday, Benin’s President Patrice Talon denied that the events of December 7th constituted a coup attempt, calling it instead an “attack” carried out by ‘thugs and small-time terrorists encouraged by a few marginal political actors."

Talon said that there was no support from the population and no significant section of the army joined in.  

Talon also acknowledged that Nigeria launched two airstrikes at his request in order to force the plotters out of the Togbin base, in a residential neighbourhood of the capital Cotonou, where they had barricaded themselves in. "We needed a surgical strike to neutralise the armoured vehicles they had seized," Talon said.

Referring to alleged coup leader Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri, Talon said that he had "left the camp in civilian clothes and in a vehicle." Other leaders on the run were able to flee across the border, Talon said, adding that Benin has requested their extradition.

Some 30 people, most of them soldiers, have been arrested in connection with the attempted coup and are being held in detention ahead of their trial.