BY SOUMANOU SALIFOU

Updated at 9 p.m. local time

In a televised address this evening, President Talon confirmed the failure of the coup attempt staged early in the morning by a group of soldiers: “We stood together, took back all the positions and cleared the last resistance pockets.” According to the head of state, the “mutineers” fled with hostages. He also said there were casualties, without giving any details. The situation is “totally under control,” the head of state said, urging his fellow citizens to go about their normal activities “as early as this evening.”

According to the French television France 24, Benin was able to crush the coup attempt thanks to help from Nigeria. Although the coup attempt appeared to have been crushed within an hour, gunfire could still be heard in the evening.

Cotonou, Benin: A few hours ago, a group of military officers appeared on Benin’s state-owned television to announce a coup, resulting, in their statement, into the dissolution of the government and all the state’s institutions. In the murky, evolving situation, the coup appeared to have been foiled.

In a video shared on social media, Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, the government spokesperson, said that the situation is under control. According to an unidentified official close to the Beninese head of state who spoke to the French news agency, Agence France Press, “It’s a small group of people who only took the television station. The regular army is taking back control. The city of Cotonou and the country are totally secured, just as are the president and his family.”

At the time of this writing, gunshots can still be heard in the vicinity of the presidential palace and the state-owned radio-TV stations. This reporter has just been advised by friends and family not to venture out. We did so anyway and heard gunshots in the near distance. The Internet is still working, but the state-owned radio-TV signals, apparently out of the hands of the coup plotters, have been disabled.

After a long history of coups, the country previously known as Dahomey turned stable in the wake of a so-called Marxist-Leninist revolution that lasted 17 years—1972-1989—before turning democratic thanks to a new constitution adopted on December 11, 1990. The country, renamed Benin on November 30, 1975, has witnessed peaceful transfers of power, its current president, Patrice Talon, being so far the fourth leader of the post-revolution era.

Talon’s second term expires in April 2026, when new elections are expected to take place.

If news of coups often comes as a shock, this one really took the populations by surprise, given the Beninese people’s fervent commitment to stability and peace, in an African region where discontent populations don’t hesitate to take to the streets, with the youth sometimes losing their lives by the dozens to the merciless guns pointed to them by armed forces loyal to the leaders.

An international, non-partisan analyst with Beninese roots interviewed for this article, who welcomed the apparent failure of the coup, said that “a coup, even when it fails, is symptomatic of a divided army. The worst is never impossible.” He added, “The country should not fall back into instability due to a few, whether they are civilians or military. Let them all be mindful of the gravity of the political situation, paving the way for the return to normalcy and peace.”