Benin Foreign Minister Confirms Immediate Military Support Was Requested From Nigeria to Avert ‘Extensive Civilian Harm’

The Government of the Republic of Benin has formally confirmed that the swift and decisive intervention by the Nigerian military, which helped foil the recent coup attempt, was carried out at the express and urgent request of Beninese President Patrice Talon. This confirmation puts an end to speculation regarding the legality and motives of Nigeria’s cross-border military operation.

Benin’s Foreign Minister, Olushegun Bakari, provided the clarification during a joint press conference held on the sideline of the 95th ECOWAS Council of Ministers Meeting in Abuja on Thursday, December 11, 2025. Bakari stated that military action was necessary to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe after the mutinous soldiers who had briefly seized the national television station on Sunday, December 7, 2025 gained a strategic foothold in Cotonou.

“The intervention of Nigeria was a response to the request of the Beninese authorities,” Bakari said. He explained that a comprehensive security assessment showed that confronting the armed group with Beninese loyalist forces alone would have triggered extensive civilian harm due to the tactical positioning of the assailants.

The Minister’s confirmation aligns with earlier statements from the Nigerian Presidency, which detailed two separate requests for assistance. The first was an appeal for immediate air support to help dislodge the coup plotters from the seized national institutions. This was quickly followed by a request for Nigerian Air Force assets for surveillance and rapid intervention, as well as the limited deployment of Nigerian ground forces for missions approved by the Beninese military command. Bakari expressed profound gratitude to President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian people for their decisive show of solidarity, which he said successfully averted bloodshed and halted the spread of military coups across the fragile West African region.