NAIROBI (Kaab TV) – A group of soldiers appeared on Benin’s state television on Sunday to announce the dissolution of the government in what appears to be the latest coup attempt in West Africa.
Shortly after the announcement, the signal of the national broadcaster was cut.
The soldiers, identifying themselves as the Military Committee for Refoundation, declared that the president and all state institutions had been removed.
They said Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri had been appointed as the committee’s new leader.
Benin, which gained independence from France in 1960, experienced multiple coups in the decades that followed.
However, the country had remained politically stable since 1991, after the end of Marxist-Leninist leader Mathieu Kérékou’s two-decade rule.
“Everything is fine,” government spokesperson Wilfried Houngbedji told The Associated Press, without providing further details. There has been no official information about President Patrice Talon’s whereabouts since gunfire was reported near the presidential residence. Both state television and public radio went off air after the military’s declaration.
Talon’s office later said that loyalist forces had brought the situation “under control.”
A source close to the president also told AFP that Talon was safe and that regular army units were regaining control. Talon has been in power since 2016 and was due to step down next April following presidential elections.