The Contradictions of Benin’s Alleged Coup Plot

In September 2024, news of an alleged coup surfaced in the typically stable Republic of Benin, raising questions about the country’s democratic stability, and the broader implications for West Africa. 

Benin—a small coastal West African country of around 14.5 million people, nestled between Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria—has recently been at the centre of a coup controversy. Since 2020, there have been nine successful coups (alongside several attempted coups) across the West and Central African regions. Most have occurred in Francophone Africa, destabilizing the region and prompting deeper structural questions about the future of governance and security in the region. Despite the democratic backsliding across many countries, Benin had in fact been one of West Africa’s more stable democracies. Since the country returned to democratic rule in 1991, after almost two decades of military dictatorship, regular presidential elections have been held in the country every five years.  

On the morning of 24 September 2024, however, the state prosecutor, Elonm Mario Metonou, announced that the former sports minister, Oswald Homeky, had been arrested while trying to hand over six bags of money to the head of the Republican guard, Colonel Djimon Dieudonne Tevoedjre. The prosecutor stated that the bags contained 1.5 billion CFA francs (about $2.5 million). Olivier Boko, a businessman and long-standing friend and advisor to President Patrice Talon, was also arrested and detained. Boko had recently indicated his ambition to contest the 2026 presidential elections, while Homeky had resigned from his ministerial position in 2023 to support Boko’s presidential ambition. Metonou, the special prosecutor at Benin’s court for economic and terrorism crimes (Cour de Répression des Infractions Économiques et du Terrorisme; CRIET) stated that: ‘It appears the Republican guard commander in charge of the president’s security was engaged by Minister Oswald Homeky and Olivier Boko in order to carry out a coup by force on September 27, 2024’...