Far from merely being an internal event, the Benin coup attempt briefly placed the geopolitics of the entire region under a magnifying glass, laying bare deepening fault lines in a part of Africa that has recently grown ever more unstable.
The failure last week of a bid by soldiers in the West African nation of Benin to overthrow the outgoing president, Patrice Talon, was much more than big news in a small country that most people outside of Africa would have trouble locating on a map.
The failure last week of a bid by soldiers in the West African nation of Benin to overthrow the outgoing president, Patrice Talon, was much more than big news in a small country that most people outside of Africa would have trouble locating on a map.
Far from merely being an internal event, the Benin coup attempt briefly placed the geopolitics of the entire region under a magnifying glass, laying bare deepening fault lines in a part of Africa that has recently grown ever more unstable.
Talon’s government was barely saved by a complicated multinational intervention that involved the dispatch of troops by members of the Economic Community of West African States, or Ecowas. Ecowas’s involvement was led by Nigeria, Benin’s giant neighbor to the east and Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria dispatched elements of its air force to bomb rebel positions and support rallying pro-governmental troops.
In the background, though, loomed France, whi
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