Benin's President Patrice Talon said the government and armed forces had thwarted an attempted coup after soldiers appeared on state television claiming to have removed him from power.
The announcement, carried on Sunday evening, came after gunfire was heard in Cotonou, the country's largest city, and after the soldiers' televised declaration of a takeover. Talon said the rapid mobilisation of loyal forces had allowed authorities to stop what he called adventurers.
The packet places the event in a broader regional context where military takeovers have unsettled democratic politics across West Africa in recent years. Benin, long considered one of the region's more stable systems, now finds itself on that same uneasy map.
According to the report, about a dozen soldiers were arrested, though the exact number remained fluid and was quoted from security sources. The troops who appeared on television said they were acting as the Military Committee for Refoundation and framed their move as an effort to address insecurity and political decay.
The attempted coup comes ahead of a presidential election due in April, adding political sensitivity to an already tense environment. The packet says Talon has been credited with economic revival but has also faced criticism over political repression and the imprisonment of opposition figures.
That tension matters because coups rarely emerge from nowhere. Even if the attempt was brief and unsuccessful, it was rooted in grievances about security in the north, corruption, opposition marginalisation and broader military frustrations. Whether those grievances are genuine, opportunistic or both, they helped shape the message of the mutineers.
Regional institutions moved quickly. The Economic Community of West African States condemned the attempt and said it would support restoration of order, while the African Union also denounced it and backed Talon's government. Those reactions reflect the growing alarm over the spread of military intervention in the region.
The packet does not establish whether the coup plotters held any ground beyond the television appearance, how close they came to state institutions, or whether more arrests were expected. But the overall picture is that the takeover effort was narrow, brief and unsuccessful.
For Benin, the incident is still alarming because even a failed coup can expose fractures in the security apparatus and unsettle public confidence. For the wider region, it is another reminder that democratic transitions remain vulnerable to armed spoilers, especially where insecurity and political resentment overlap.
Talon said the situation was under control. The immediate test is whether that claim holds as the government moves from stopping a coup attempt to identifying the people and pressures that made it possible.
