The Economic Community of West African States has formally declared a state of emergency across the region, a rare step that underscores how badly the security and political landscape has deteriorated following a wave of coups, mutinies, and attempted takeovers in recent months.
Omar Touray, president of the ECOWAS Commission, announced the decision on Tuesday at the 55th session of the Mediation and Security Council at the ministerial level in Abuja. He told delegates that the pattern of attacks on democratic institutions shows that West Africa has reached a breaking point and can no longer proceed as though these events are isolated cases.
Touray said the rising turmoil demands “serious introspection on the future of our democracy and the urgent need to invest in the security of our community.” His remarks came only days after soldiers in the Benin Republic attempted to seize power, a mutiny that unfolded less than a month after military officers in Guinea-Bissau took control of government buildings and halted the electoral process.
Gunfire erupted across several neighborhoods in Cotonou on Sunday as heavily armed officers appeared on state television to announce the dissolution of national institutions under a group calling itself the Military Committee for Refoundation, led by Colonel Tigri Pascal. They declared the suspension of the constitution and announced the closure of land, air, and maritime borders. The soldiers claimed that worsening insecurity in northern Benin and the alleged neglect of fallen troops compelled them to strike.
The coup attempt did not last long. Benin’s President Patrice Talon confirmed that loyal forces regained control within hours, helped by immediate military assistance from Nigeria. In a televised address, he expressed condolences to the families of victims and promised that hostages held by fleeing mutineers would be recovered.
The intervention unfolded through air and ground operations executed at Talon’s request. Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga said President Bola Tinubu ordered the Nigerian Air Force to enter Benin’s airspace and help eject the mutineers from key locations, including the national broadcaster and a military camp where they had regrouped. Sources told PREMIUM TIMES that Nigerian fighter jets conducted targeted drops of explosives to scare off the coup plotters, while army battalions from Ikorodu, Badagry, and Owode in Ogun State were mobilized across land borders.
The Nigerian presidency later explained that the operation was conducted under Benin’s coordination and in line with the ECOWAS protocol guiding rapid responses in defense of constitutional order.
“The government also requested Nigerian ground forces, strictly for missions approved by Benin’s command authority, in support of protecting constitutional institutions and containing armed groups,” the presidency said.
ECOWAS itself endorsed the intervention and ordered the deployment of a regional troop with personnel from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana. The bloc condemned the attempted takeover as “a subversion of the will of the people of Benin.”
Nigeria’s Chief of Defense Staff, General Olufemi Oluyede, confirmed that the armed forces acted entirely on Tinubu’s directive.
“Ours is to comply with the directive of the Commander-in-Chief,” he said, noting that all requested deployments were executed.
Tinubu praised the military after order was restored, saying the operation showed their commitment to defending democratic institutions across the region.
The speed of the response is said to have helped prevent what could have become another prolonged crisis in West Africa, a region that has seen a string of successful coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea since 2020. Although Benin had gone nearly half a century without a military takeover, analysts say the sharp rise in insurgent attacks in the country’s northern region has created underlying tension.
President Talon has been in office since 2016 and is expected to leave office next April. Political analysts say the attempted mutiny, though short-lived, reinforces wider anxieties about institutional resilience ahead of leadership transitions across West Africa.
The instability also sharpened tensions with the Alliance of Sahel States, a bloc formed by Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger after they split from ECOWAS. The AES accused Nigeria of violating its airspace after a Nigerian military transport plane landed in Burkina Faso on Monday. The alliance announced that its air defenses were on maximum alert and authorized to neutralize any unauthorized aircraft.
Nigeria maintained that the incident was unrelated to the events in Benin. Nigerian Air Force spokesperson Ehimen Ejodame said the C-130 aircraft made a precautionary landing in Bobo-Dioulasso due to a technical concern detected shortly after takeoff from Lagos on a flight to Portugal. He said the landing followed standard aviation protocols and was lawful. The crew and nine military passengers remain safe, though AES officials prevented the aircraft from departing immediately.
The Senate in Abuja has now granted Tinubu’s request to dispatch troops officially for what the president described as a peace-keeping mission in Benin. Senate President Godswill Akpabio read the request during Tuesday’s plenary before it was approved unanimously.
At the ECOWAS meeting, Touray warned that elections have become “a major trigger of instability” in the region, citing patterns of political manoeuvres that undermine democratic norms. Several countries, including Guinea, Benin, Gambia, and Cape Verde, are set to hold elections soon, raising concerns about whether current tensions will spill over into the polls.
He added that ECOWAS must negotiate new terms of security cooperation with the AES, especially because terrorist groups continue to attack borders shared with the breakaway states.
“We must pool our resources to confront the threats of terrorism and banditry, which operate without respect for territorial boundaries,” he said.
Touray urged the council to defend unity within ECOWAS at a moment when external pressures, internal fractures, and recurring coups are testing the foundations of the bloc more severely than at any other point in recent years.
While the Benin coup attempt collapsed quickly, the broader pattern shows a region struggling to contain a spiraling mix of political volatility, armed insurgency, tense civil-military relations, and diplomatic rifts between ECOWAS and its former members in the Sahel. West Africa now enters a period of heightened uncertainty under a formal regional state of emergency, with rising demands on Nigeria and a narrowing space for democratic stability across the sub-region.
