Editorial:Benin's Failed Coup and Nigeria's Regional Swagger

Africa’s coup season, like a bad television series, refuses to end. Just when the continent’s self-appointed custodians of constitutional order were settling into their favorite ritual - condemnations in bold type, sanctions in italics - a foiled putsch in Benin on December 7th rudely interrupted proceedings. Soldiers briefly seized a television station, declared democracy suspended, and were promptly dislodged, thanks in no small part to Nigeria’s air power. Order was restored; speeches were made; principles were reaffirmed. And yet the aftertaste lingers. If this was a victory for democracy, it was a curiously hollow one.

 

The African Union and ECOWAS insist they operate a policy of “zero tolerance” for unconstitutional changes of government. In practice, this has come to resemble zero curiosity about why coups keep happening. West and Central Africa, supposedly protected by layers of subsidiarity, protocols and communiqués, have become the world’s most reliable producers of military adventurism. That the recent crop is overwhelmingly Francophone invites speculation. Are these coups rebellions against Paris, flirtations with Moscow, or simply revolts against domestic governance so threadbare that uniforms begin to look like a policy platform?

 

Benin’s case suggests the last explanation deserves pride of place. President Patrice Talon, in office since 2016, once promised to govern for a single term and to entrench that restraint constitutionally. Benin today looks less like a laboratory of reform than a museum of political closure. Opposition parties complain; loudly and repeatedly, that the rules of participation have been rewritten to ensure only presidential loyalists can play. A new electoral law demands hefty financial deposits and endorsements that, conveniently, only two pro-government parties can muster. Courts, critics say, have been repurposed from referees into instruments. These are allegations, not convictions, but they are persistent enough to explain why protests have simmered and why conspirators thought a coup might find an audience.

 

This is the contradiction at the heart of Africa’s anti-coup theology. Regional bodies rush to defend elected presidents, even when those presidents have spent years hollowing out the very institutions that make elections meaningful. The people, whose “will” is endlessly invoked in communiqués, appear mostly as a footnote. It is little wonder that sanctions fail to deter juntas who can point to cheering crowds and shrug at distant threats.

 

Enter Nigeria, stage left, trailing fighter jets. Abuja’s intervention in Benin was swift, muscular and legalistic. ECOWAS protocols oblige mutual assistance; subsidiarity favors neighbors over strangers; Nigeria’s strategic doctrine treats instability in the Sahel as a fire on its own porch. By these measures, President Bola Tinubu’s decision to assist President Talon was defensible, even commendable. Parliament was consulted (after the fact), the military complied, and a coup was stopped.

 

Yet this show of regional vigilance has provoked awkward questions at home. Nigerians watched jets roar over Cotonou and wondered why similar resolve has proved elusive against kidnappers and bandits operating with impunity within Nigeria’s borders. Critics accuse the government of discovering its courage only when elite interests, or international applause, are at stake. Supporters retort that preventing a neighboring collapse is itself a form of homeland security. Both may be right. But the optics are unfortunate: a state that struggles to protect its own villages suddenly auditioning for the role of regional gendarme.

 

The diplomatic ripples have been no less revealing. France’s reported telephone diplomacy - calling Cotonou, then nudging Abuja - has revived old suspicions about who still pulls which strings. Meanwhile, the Sahel’s military regimes, gathered in their Alliance of Sahel States, responded to Nigeria’s activism with icy hostility, detaining Nigerian officers after an aircraft made an unscheduled landing. The message was unmistakable: West Africa’s fault lines are hardening, not healing.

 

What, then, does Benin’s failed coup tell us about Africa’s democratic future? First, that longevity is no vaccine against relapse. Democracies that cease to reform themselves eventually invite men with guns to propose “solutions”. Second, that condemnation without prevention is a policy, but not a strategy. ECOWAS excels at urging and condemning; it is less adept at insisting on good governance before tanks appear. Third, that foreign powers, whether old patrons or new suitors, will continue to exploit vacuums created by domestic failure.

 

Nigeria’s intervention may yet be remembered as prudent firefighting. It may also mark a turning point, committing Africa’s largest democracy to a more assertive, and riskier, regional role. The danger is that force becomes the default answer to crises whose roots are political, legal and social. Fighter jets can silence coup plotters; they cannot rebuild trust in courts, reopen political space, or persuade citizens that ballots matter more than barracks.

 

It is trite to observe that constitutions depend not just on rules, but on habits. West Africa’s habit of rescuing presidents without rescuing governance is proving costly. Until that changes, coups will remain tempting, interventions will multiply, and democracy will survive; if at all, by emergency measures. That is not a triumph worth celebrating.