Nigeria says it deployed troops to Benin to ‘dislodge coup plotters’

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has confirmed deploying combatant jets and crushed troops to neighbouring Benin to assistance foil a coup attempt by a radical of Beninese soldiers.

In a connection connected Sunday, Tinubu’s bureau said Nigeria’s subject intervened successful Benin aft President Patrice Talon’s authorities issued 2 requests for help, including for “immediate Nigerian aerial support”.

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Tinubu archetypal ordered Nigerian combatant jets to participate Benin and “take implicit the airspace to assistance dislodge the coup plotters from the National TV and a subject campy wherever they had regrouped”, the connection said.

Nigeria’s subject sent successful crushed troops later, aft Benin’s authorities asked for their enactment successful “the extortion of law institutions and the containment of equipped groups”, it said.

Tinubu praised his troops and said they had helped “stabilise a neighbouring country”.

The Nigerian connection came soon aft Talon, the president of Benin, appeared connected nationalist tv and said his information forces had successfully blocked the effort to overthrow his government.

Talon promises punishment

Talon said forces loyal to him “stood firm, recaptured our positions, and cleared the past pockets of absorption held by the mutineers”.

“This committedness and mobilisation enabled america to decision these adventurers and to forestall the worst for our country,” helium said. “This treachery volition not spell unpunished.”

The Benin president added that his thoughts were with the victims of the coup effort arsenic good arsenic with a fig of radical who person been held by the fleeing mutineers.

He did not springiness details.

The unrest was the latest menace to antiauthoritarian governance successful the region, wherever militaries person successful caller years seized powerfulness successful Benin’s neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, arsenic good arsenic successful Mali, Guinea and, lone past month, Guinea-Bissau. But it was an unexpected improvement successful Benin, wherever the past palmy coup took spot successful 1972.

A authorities spokesperson, Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, said that 14 radical had been arrested successful transportation with the coup effort arsenic of Sunday afternoon, without providing details.

One information root told the AFP quality bureau that each the detainees were soldiers successful progressive service, but 1 who was ex-military. It was not wide if Lieutenant Colonel Pascal Tigri, the coup leader, had been apprehended.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Olushegun Adjadi Bakari told the Reuters quality bureau that the soldiers had lone managed to concisely instrumentality power of the authorities TV network.

While gunfire had been heard successful immoderate locations of the country’s commercialized hub, Cotonou, during the coup attempt, the metropolis has been comparatively calm since aboriginal afternoon, according to residents.

ECOWAS to nonstop troops

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) determination bloc and the African Union besides condemned the coup attempt.

In a connection aboriginal connected Sunday, ECOWAS said it had ordered the contiguous deployment of elements of its standby unit to Benin, including troops from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

It said the troops would assistance the Beninese authorities and service “preserve law bid and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Benin”.

The coup effort came arsenic Benin prepares for a statesmanlike predetermination successful April, which is expected to people the extremity of Talon’s tenure.

Last month, Benin adopted a caller constitution, creating a Senate and extending the statesmanlike mandate from 5 to 7 years. Critics person described the reforms arsenic a powerfulness drawback by the governing coalition, which has chosen Minister of Economy and Finance Romuald Wadagni arsenic its candidate.

The absorption Democrats party, founded by Talon’s predecessor, Thomas Boni Yayi, has meantime seen its projected campaigner rejected due to the fact that of what a tribunal ruled was insufficient backing from lawmakers.

Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, lawman manager of the Sahel Project astatine the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the coup bids successful Benin and different African countries person been partially driven by governments rejecting their antiauthoritarian responsibilities.

“In caller days and caller months, we person each been holding our enactment astir what could hap successful galore countries that are either facing information situations that are bad, oregon are coming to an election, wherever determination is nary clarity connected whether the rulers volition beryllium respecting the rules of the antiauthoritarian game,” Yahaya said.

“That is simply a bully portion of the communicative [in Benin]. President Talon has accepted to measurement down successful a discourse wherever galore different leaders are trying to adhd caller terms. We saw it successful Cote d’Ivoire, we saw it successful Cameroon recently, and galore different cases. But the little affirmative portion of the communicative is that the person of the opposition’s candidacy has been invalidated successful Benin,” helium added.