When armed soldiers in the small West African nation of Benin appeared on state television on December 7 to announce that they had seized power in a coup, it felt to many across the region as another episode in the ongoing coup crisis that has seen several governments fall since 2020.
However, this time the scene unfolded differently.
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Amid reports of gunfire and civilians fleeing to safety in the economic capital, Cotonou residents, Beninese and others across the region waited with bated breath for conflicting information to emerge. On the one hand, a small group of rebels declared victory, but Benin’s military and government officials claimed the plot had failed.
By evening the situation had become clear and the Benin government was still in existence. President Patrice Tallon and loyalist forces in the military had managed to maintain control thanks to support from the country’s larger neighbors, particularly Nigeria, its eastern ally and regional power.
While Mr. Tallon is now enjoying a victory as president without losing his seat, attention is also on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Regional blocs have rallied to help Benin get out of trouble after it appeared to resign in the face of crises that rocked the region, including just last month when the military seized power in Guinea-Bissau.
But this time, after much criticism and embarrassment, ECOWAS was ready to bite back and fight back against the narrative that ECOWAS is a powerless bloc, political analyst Ryan Cummings told Al Jazeera.
“We wanted to remind the community that we have the authority to intervene if the situation warrants,” Cummings said. “At some point, we had to draw a line in the sand.” [and] At stake was the collapse of West Africa’s most stable sovereign state. ”
Will there be a new ECOWAS?
Benin’s military victory is a stunning turnaround for ECOWAS, which has been left weighed down in the region since 2020, when a coup in Mali sparked a series of startling military takeovers across the region.
Between 2020 and 2025, nine coup attempts overthrew five democratic governments and two military regimes. The most recent successful coup took place on November 28th in Guinea-Bissau. Bissau-Guineans had voted in the presidential election several days earlier and were waiting for the results to be announced when the military seized state television, detained incumbent President Umaro Sissoko Embalo and announced a new military leader.
ECOWAS, which had a high-level delegation in Bissau to monitor the electoral process at the time of the coup, was at a disadvantage and could do little more than issue a statement of condemnation. These statements sounded similar to those issued after coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea. The bloc appeared to be a far cry from the system that had successfully intervened to stop civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and later Ivory Coast, from 1990 to 2003. The last ECOWAS military intervention in 2017 thwarted attempts by Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh to overturn election results.
In fact, in its heyday, ECOWAS’s success depended on the health of its members. Nigeria, perhaps the backbone of ECOWAS, whose military led interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, has recently been mired in security instability and its own economic crisis. In July 2023, when Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was chair of ECOWAS, he threatened to invade Niger after a coup there.
It was tragic timing. Facing livelihood-eroding inflation and constant attacks by armed groups in the country, Nigerians have been among the most vocal in resisting invasion. Many believed that Tinubu, who took office just a few months ago, had his priorities wrong. Weeks later, by the time ECOWAS had finished debating what to do, Niger’s military government had consolidated support throughout the military, and Nigeriens themselves had decided they wanted to support the military. ECOWAS and Tinubu retreated and were defeated.
Niger withdrew completely from the alliance in January, forming the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with fellow military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso. All three share cultural and geographical kinship, but are also united by a collective hatred of their former colonial power, France, which they accuse of interfering in their country. Despite battling brutal armed groups such as Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslim (JNIM), the three governments have severed ties with previously stationed French troops and welcomed Russian fighters, with varying effectiveness, security experts say.
But Benin was different, and ECOWAS seemed to have woken up. Cummings said that apart from the fact that it was an overreaching coup, the country’s proximity to Nigeria and two major mistakes made by the rebels gave ECOWAS a fighting chance.
The first mistake was that the rebels failed to take Talon hostage, similar to the tactics of rebels in the region. This allowed the president to send an SOS directly to his counterparts after the initial attack on the presidential palace in the wee hours of the morning failed.
The second mistake was perhaps even more serious.
“Not all troops were on board,” Cummings said, noting that the small group of about 100 rebel soldiers probably assumed other units would go along, but underestimated the loyalty of other factions to the president. That was a miscalculation in a country that ended military rule in 1990 and where 73% of Beninese believe democracy is better than any other form of government, according to polling website Afrobarometer. Many are especially proud that their country is hailed as the most stable democracy in the region.
“There was a division within the military, and that was an opportunity to allow ECOWAS to deploy, because it wasn’t a case of ‘if we deploy, we become a military target’. I would venture to say that without a counter-coup, ECOWAS would not have been involved, because it was a conventional war,” Cummings added.
Benin’s neighbors quickly read the situation in the room and reacted quickly. For the first time in almost a decade, the bloc sent standby ground forces from Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. Abuja authorized airstrikes against rebel soldiers who were making a last stand, effectively cornered at a military base in Cotonou and a state television building. France also supported the mission by providing information. By nightfall, the rebels were completely eliminated by Nigerian military jets. The battle of Cotonou is over.
At least 14 people have since been arrested. Several casualties were reported on both sides, including a civilian, the wife of a senior official marked for assassination. Benin authorities revealed on Wednesday that coup leader Colonel Pascal Tigri is hiding in neighboring Togo.
Kabiru Adamu, founder of Abuja-based intelligence firm Beacon Security, said what is at stake for ECOWAS is the risk of losing one more member, possibly to an inland AES. “I am 90% sure that Benin joined AES because it desperately needs a coastal state,” he said, referring to Benin’s Cotonou port, where AES’s export capacity will expand.
Mr Cummings also said that Nigeria cannot afford to allow military regimes to mismanage the deteriorating security situation in northern Benin, as has been seen in AES countries. The JNIM militant group launched its first attack on mainland Nigeria in October, adding to the pressure on Abuja as it continues to confront Boko Haram in the northeast and armed bandit groups in the northwest. Abuja is also under diplomatic attack from the United States, which has falsely claimed there has been a “genocide of Christians” in the country.
“We know that this insecurity is the stick that Tinubu is being beaten with, and we already know that his nose is bloody,” Cummings said.
Last Sunday, Mr. Tinubu celebrated the glory of his mission in Benin and praised the Nigerian military in a statement, saying, “Nigerian troops stood bravely as defenders of the constitutional order.” A group of Nigerian governors also praised the president’s action, saying it would strengthen Nigeria’s position as a regional power and help thwart further coup plots.
not out of the woods yet
The reality may not be so positive, analysts say, given the realization that ECOWAS will reawaken and future rebels will be discouraged. Beacon Security’s Adam said there was still much work to be done before the bloc could be taken seriously again, especially defending democracy and calling for fake elections before the government became vulnerable to large-scale riots or coups.
In Benin, for example, President Talon, who has been in power since 2016, has become increasingly authoritarian and ECOWAS has not responded, even though the last two presidential elections failed to allow opposition groups. Tallon’s government has once again barred its main opposition challenger, Renaud Agbojo, from elections scheduled for April next year, while Tallon’s choice, former finance minister Romualdo Wadani, is the clear favorite.
“It’s clear that the election is already rigged,” Adam said. “Across the region, it is difficult to name one country where the rule of law has not been abandoned and where people’s voices are heard without fear.”
Adamu added that ECOWAS must actively re-educate member states on democratic principles, hold them accountable when there are lapses, as in the case of Benin, and intervene when threats emerge.
Brock seems to be paying attention. On December 9, two days after the coup attempt in Benin, ECOWAS declared a state of emergency.
“The events of recent weeks demonstrate the need for serious introspection about the future of our democracy and the urgent need to invest in the security of our communities,” ECOWAS Commission Chairman Omar Touray said at a meeting at its Abuja headquarters. Touray cited conditions that constitute a risk of a coup, including foreign influence that fractures the bloc, undermines the integrity of elections, and heightens geopolitical tensions. While ECOWAS countries currently maintain close ties with Western allies like France, the AES is staunchly pro-Russian.
Another challenge facing the member state is managing potential fallout with AES countries as France draws closer ties with Abuja. As Paris faces hostility in French-speaking West Africa, Cummings said it is approaching Nigeria, which does not have the same negative reputation as its colonial counterpart and believes it can help protect France’s business interests in the region. At the same time, ECOWAS still hopes to persuade three corrupt former members back into the organization, and countries like Ghana have already established bilateral relations with the military regime.
“The challenge then is that AES will be aware of the intervention.” [in Benin] “This is orchestrated by France, not by ECOWAS itself,” Adam said, adding that seeing France instigate intervention that could benefit the AES reinforces earlier complaints that Paris could insert itself into the region’s affairs and push the AES further away.
“So now we’re in a situation where they feel France did it. And the sad thing is we haven’t seen ECOWAS dispel that idea. So the ECOWAS standby force is [re]”He started taking controversial steps,” Adam added.
