Before soldiers seized Cotonou’s state television station to declare Patrice Talon deposed, Benin’s democracy had already become a sham.
Talon entered office in 2016 bearing the hopes of the country’s poor. Benin’s democracy, then 25 years old, was stable but stagnant, yielding little prosperity. Talon pledged to a single term—unshackled from re-election pressures and the politics of longevity—to fight corruption and set Benin on a path to prosperity.
Talon, the king of Cotton, consummate multibillionaire businessman: the people saw him as a breath of fresh air. Weary of decades of fruitless stability, they swallowed his promises whole. He seemed too rich to steal, too shrewd for vanity. They believed he would run the country like his companies, with technocratic efficiency. Indeed, Talon soon turned Benin into his personal political enterprise.
Once Talon tasted power , he prioritised politics and elections over genuine leadership, every policy carried an ulterior motive. He began with a scissors to prune the political playing field. A small nation burdened with over 200 mostly moribund political parties needed reform. But by the time his party registration changes were complete, the opposition had been effectively liquidated. The new requirements were deliberately onerous and opaque, demanding endorsements only establishment-backed parties could secure. With the Constitutional Court in the custody of his personal lawyer, opponents found no justice. The national political pantaloons Talon fashioned had no space for for political diversity.
As parliamentary elections arrived in 2019, tension gripped the country. Only two parties—both loyal to Talon—truly contested. The election had been tailored to fit Talon’s dreams. The result was total capture of all critical institutions. An absolute parliamentary majority allowing him to tear apart and restitch the nation’s foundational frameworks from his bedroom. The Parliament and Judiciary were united in the blooming sycophancy, effectively ‘standing on his mandate’ like Tinubu’s lackeys. Global democracy watchdogs downgraded Benin. Protests erupted but were swiftly quelled with bullets. Talismanic Talon had been found out: a wolf in sheep’s cotton clothing.
This systematic closure of democratic space continued through legal engineering . Cold and brutal repression of the press and opposition voices intensified . Critics became dissidents
Protests were punished like treason. By the 2021 presidential elections, his major opposition rivals were in prison. One on terrorism charges. Another for money laundering and subversion. Talon “won” nearly 90% of the vote. Inflated figures masked abysmal turnout. International observers called the process “peaceful”. In Africa elections greeted by hopelessness and apathy are often ‘peaceful’. Talon had unified parties and homogenised politics through force and bribery. He was no longer king of cotton, he was king of Benin .
On his part , Tinubu was kingmaker before he became president . Hos supporters said he had a magic wand . But months into his presidency, some Nigerian political watchers were alarmed by Bola Tinubu’s style. Besides some economic reforms to maximize revenue gathering , Tinubu’s greatest achievement has been the destabilization of the opposition parties and capture of the opposition leaders. As governors and senators defect en masse to his ruling party to service his every whim, Tinubu like Talon is fast going from president to king. With the EFCC targeting opposition figures, the 2027 elections risk being similarly peaceful. The election observers will be too polite to name the void. Tinubu and Talon are two of a kind.
Soon after his re-election, Talon brought a needle to stich his tattered legitimacy. In 2017 , Freedom House had ranked Benin Republic’s democracy a robust 82/100, praising its competitive elections and civil liberties. By 2023, that score had plummeted to 59. It described Benin as a “hybrid regime” teetering on authoritarianism. So Talon decided to make amends. He permitted re-registration of the castrated main opposition. He spoke of openness and accommodation. Critics smelled a rat. He called it necessary magnanimity to unite the country. Having won the war, he could mend the fences he had deliberately smashed. Despite glimmers of hope in the economy – GDP growth from cotton exports, infrastructure boosts, repartriation from disapora – hopelessness and poverty spread.
Much like Tinubu’s reforms, Talon’s were geared toward political advantage. He extended presidential terms from five to seven years, exempting himself—a seemingly virtuous act. Critics said he had positioned his finance minister as puppet president to succeed him . Then came the creation of a Senate chamber for former presidents and appointees. Controlling everything, Talon appeared to be engineering a lifelong presidency through the backdoor. Possibly as the head of the new senate. .
The coup attempt against Talon has been quelled. Tinubu who has lacked urgency against the insurgencies suffocating Nigeria was swift to help Talon and please Macron. He dispatched jets and boots to Cotonou . But not before the plotters had managed to get their message out. They blamed Talon “s complacency and negligence for the northern insecurity, insisting the situation had become unbearable as many soldiers and citizens died while Talon played political chess of self perpetuation . Rather than conbat the insurgency, Talon bombed multiparty democracy and civil liberties . The coup plotters may have been power thieves, but they captured the tragedy of Talon: a man who promised to unite, protect, and emancipate, but has now prioritised power politics and self.
Tinubu had to act without initial parliamentary consent. Besides the parliament being his ribber stamp, Talon’s fall would be a bad omen because they shared too much in common. Tinubu said he sent soldiers to save democracy. But it was more about preserving Talon and ultimately himself. Benin’s Democracy has been in coma for a while. West African Democracy in an endangered species here. Transformative leadership—needed for its longevity—seems beyond the capacity of its current breed of regional democrats .
With charlatans at the helm, democracy has been counterfeited. Inept civilian autocracies, one party dominant shams are passed around as democracy. This hollow democracy yields neither freedom nor health, jobs nor education. Perhaps without an informed electorate, democracy is a mirage here. Perhaps we lack the basic pre requisites for true democracy. So these opportunists who run around as politicians have discovered the flaw but wont let us know. They need not bother . The people are too busy struggling to exist . Anything in civilian clothes is democracy.
It is good the coup failed—military regimes have been curses. Yet Talon must heed the message. Tinubu has only bought him time. Tinubu cannot save him forever. He inherited Africa’s gold-standard democracy and turned it into a miserable counterfeit. He must change his ways.
Mathieu Kérékou, once a dictator, organised the 1991 Sovereign National Conference and lost power. In 34 years, Benin marched from that conference and a highly rated democracy to one without opposition. The entire region has retrogressed. Nigeria has intervened to save democracy in a few places but its democracy is in a parlous state. In 2015, Tinubu’s APC inherited a fairly thriving multiparty system. After just two-and-a-half years of Tinubu’s presidency, opposition parties are being liquidated, governors bought or bullied into the ruling fold, parliament and judiciary mirroring Talon’s. Northern Nigeria, like Benin’s north, is ravaged by insecurity. Many feel the Benin coup was a message to Tinubu too. Tinubu, like Talon, is preoccupied with nepotism and self-perpetuation.
Those who shear away every opposing voice, who capture parliaments and bend judiciaries until they snap, are not reformers.
They are coup plotters in bespoke suits—slow, smiling, civilian.
Have Talon and Tinubu strengthened democracy in their countries? Men who promised renewal but delivered political sterilisation under the guise of reform. The continent has many kinds of coup plotters – slow, smiling civillians in bespoke suits and agbada rigging laws , policies and elections for political advantage. Are those who liquidate opposition parties any less culpable than those dismantle democracy itself. Are those who capture parliaments and judiciaries less than coup plotters?
Talon and Tinubu: the handwriting is on the wall.
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