Source : Sahel weather December 2024 

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Clearly, the hatchet between Benin and Niger has not yet been completely buried, despite the thawing of diplomatic relations. In an interview broadcast on Niger's national television on December 25, General Abdourahamane Tiani accused Benin of serving as a rear base for terrorists and seeking to destabilize his country.According to the Nigerien head of state, Benin had acquired one hundred Chinese-made drones, which were then distributed to terrorist groups in the Sahel, all under the aegis of France and the European Union. This allegationhas been roundly rejected by the Beninese authorities. Benin's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olushegun Bakari, subsequently sent a letter to Niger's Minister of Foreign Affairs on December 31, summoning Niger's chargé d'affaires “for clarification (...) due to unfounded accusations”.

The relative security lull of recent months was unfortunately short-lived. At the beginning of the month, two attacks put the security situation in the north of the country back in the spotlight. Firstly, on December 3, an attack by unidentified armed individuals in Malanville killed three Beninese soldiers and wounded four others, according to a military source. The soldiers were part of a team monitoring the pipeline linking the Agadem oil fields to Sémè-Kpodji. Then, on December 10, three Beninese soldiers lost their lives in Pendjari Park, on the border with Burkina Faso. "Three of our soldiers lost their lives inside the park. Their vehicle hit a mine. We can't say any more for the moment,” an officer with Operation Mirador told Le Monde laconically. Neither an official death toll nor the identity of the perpetrators has been released by the Beninese authorities. It has to be said that Benin communicates very little about incidents in the north of the country, where the army has been grappling with the terrorist threat for several years now. However, elements of Operation Miardor declared that they had carried out an offensive onDecember 15, “neutralizing seven suspected terrorists” in the town of Banikoara.According to the Beninese armed forces (FAB), between 2019 and January 2024, 43 civilians and 27 military personnel were killed, for “around a hundred terrorists” neutralized. These losses were mostly attributed to jihadist fighters from the Islamic State (EI) and al-Qaeda groups, present in neighboring countries.

On the domestic political front, President Patrice Talon's December 20 address to Parliament was particularly eagerly awaited. Firstly, he acknowledged that the security situation was worrying. “The only area in which we are still struggling is the fight against terrorism on the northern border,” he lamented. For the rest, the Head of State expressed his overall satisfaction with the state of the country, affirming that “our successes are indisputable in all areas, even if their effects are not always immediately perceptible.” At the end of his speech, Talon did not fail to castigate an opposition - in his words - “nostalgic for a shameful past”. This presidential address was condemned by the opposition, such as Candide Azannai, president of the Restore Hope (RE) party, who described it as “ trompe l'œil rhetoric, captive to hubris ”, in a post on his Facebook page.

A few days earlier - on December 11 - the Head of State had announced the appointment of fifteen advisory ministers. A decision timidly welcomed by part of the political class and public opinion, against a backdrop of socio-economic difficulties in the country. For Jean-Baptiste Elias, President of the Front des Organisations nationales contre la corruption (FONAC), these appointments raise the question of the State's lifestyle. "People say to themselves: ‘This is the situation, where the economy is sluggish’. (...) When you know what the people in charge of these political posts earn, compared with state employees, compared with those on the minimum wage, it creates a problem”, he remarked, speaking on Beninese radio.