EDITORIAL: Benin coup cause for concern?

The failed coup attempt in Benin last week was brief, contained and in the government’s telling decisively repelled. Ports stayed open, cargo kept moving and President Patrice Talon re-established control within hours.

Yet for West Africa’s coastal economies, especially those like Ghana whose fortunes are increasingly tied to regional trade and energy integration, can the incident be dismissed as an isolated aberration?  Or is it is a warning flare over an already fragile corridor.

For years, policymakers have comforted themselves with the notion that the political volatility reshaping the Sahel would stop at the desert’s edge.

That assumption looks less credible by the day. Benin, alongside Ghana, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire, has been considered a buffer against the insecurity engulfing Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

But the mutiny in Cotonou shows how quickly instability can seep southward. Even a failed attempt is enough to force shipping lines, insurers and investors to revisit assumptions about the predictability of the coastal belt.

The concern is not merely political; it is fundamentally economic. Benin’s port of Cotonou is one of the region’s busiest maritime gateways, handling millions of tonnes of cargo annually and serving manufacturers from northern Nigeria to landlocked Niger.

It is central to the Lagos–Abidjan transport corridor, just as it is essential to the West African Power Pool projects designed to integrate regional electricity markets. A rupture in Benin reverberates well beyond its borders.

For Ghana, which is betting heavily on regional infrastructure, from transport links to power interconnections, should we be concerned that stability in the coastal corridor is no longer guaranteed?

Investors who are already rattled by global supply chain disruptions now have another risk variable to weigh. ECOWAS, despite its swift political messaging and push for boots on the ground, must demonstrate that it can offer credible deterrence and coordinated security support, not merely statements of concern after the fact.

Benin’s institutions proved resilient this time. But resilience is not immunity. As the region confronts an arc of instability stretching from Guinea to Sudan, the coup attempt in Cotonou should be treated not as a footnote, but as a reminder that West Africa’s much-touted growth ambition rests on a political foundation that requires constant protection. Stability has become the region’s most valuable, and  yet, most vulnerable  asset.

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