Around the world it is not very common for a military regime that is in power to make
way for a democratically elected one. Usually the military government is toppled the military
and the cycle goes on and on. However in the case of Benin,
1991 saw the military dictatorship of Mathieu Kérékou cede power after being incharge for
nearly two-decades to a government that was voted into power by the masses.
Mathieu Kérékou had seized control of the West African nation in a military coup in
1972 and proclaimed a one-party Marxist state. Kérékou led Benin, as its strongman
until 1991. In his first stint in power he had ruled the country with an iron fist.
But in 1991 , Kerekou’s adherence to the constitution and his successful
engineering of a peaceful succession was seen as a remarkable feat at the time.
Benin thus became the first African state in which the army was forced from power by
civilians and the first in which an incumbent president was defeated at the polls.
In this episode of African Biographics, we look at the life and legacy of Benin’s Mathieu Kerekou,
who first ruled the country as a dictator and then remarkably transformed into being a democrat
as well as a brief history of the country of Benin.
During colonial times, Benin then known as Dahomey was under French influence since
the mid-nineteenth century. Dahomey became self-governing within the French community
in December of 1958, before achieving full independence in August of 1960.
During the period of decolonization, the nationalist movement in Dahomey
became fragmented, with the emergence of three regionally based political parties.
This was a reflection of the fact that the country was divided into spheres of influence
largely corresponding to traditional loyalties according to regional,
ethnic, or religious allegiances, with leaders emerging that reflected such divides.
These political problems in the country were exacerbated by economic difficulties
that were existent in the young country. Between 1960 and 1972, mirroring such a
chaotic state of affairs in the country, there were a total of five military coup d’états.
During this 12 year period, the country had ten different heads of state.
In a last military coup, on October 26, 1972,
power was seized by Major Mathieu Kérékou, who is the subject of this video.
MATHIEU KEREKOU Mathieu Kérékou was born in 1933, in the
northwest of what was then Dahomey. He studied at military schools in Dahomey and in France.
After the country attained independence, Kerekou served as an aide to Hubert Maga who
was Dahomey’s first post independence president. Kerekou held this position from 1961 to 1963,
when Maga was overthrown by the army. From the mid-1960s on, Kérékou became
involved in the high-level corruption that characterized the political terrain in Dahomey.
In 1967, he took part in the military coup that displaced President Christopher Soglo.
Thereafter he became the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council from 1967 to 1968.
In 1968, a civilian government was restored under Emile- Dersin Zinsou,
who was to serve as president of the republic for then next five years.
Between 1970 and 1972 ,Kérékou was commander of a paratrooper unit
as well as deputy chief of staff of the army. In 1972 he was made the minister of planning.
As I mentione earlier, in the country of Benin country, political life and political competition
became increasingly corrupt, tribalist, and limited to the political elite themselves.
As a result of this, discontent grew in the urban and rural population, and in the army itself.
Also not content with being in the shadows, Mathieu Kérékou led a coup in October 1972.
The 1972 coup was also seen as an attempt to transform both the army and the political system.
For the next seventeen years, Mathieu Kerekou led the country
as an absolute military dictator.
As the head of state, kerekou brought considerable change to the political and
economic character of his country. Though he came into to power in 1972, he did not promote
any specific political ideology until 1974, when he adopted Marxist-Leninist rhetoric.
He would also go on to rename the country the People’s Republic of Benin.
Previously Benin was the name of an African kingdom on the Gulf of Guinea that reached
its peak in the 17th century so this name change was in tribute to that.
The announcement of the change in name was made in 1975 during ceremonies to mark the
first anniversary of the proclamation of Marxist-Leninist rhetoric in the country.
There had been nothing in Kérékou’s education that suggested any exposure to or admiration
for Marxism. On the contrary, the dominant field of his education was Western philosophy.
Communism became a state-approved ideology, and all foreign enterprises were nationalized.
As a result, most foreign investors, particularly the Europeans and Lebanese, left the country.
This ideological resentment cut Benin off from important sources of international aid and
funding, and also made it very difficult for the small agricultural-based economy to function.
In our last episode where we covered the mercenary Bob Denard, I mentioned that in
an act that angered France, Kerekou declared that his country’s relations with neighboring Nigeria
were more important than solidarity with the region's club of conservative Francophone states.
Kérékou also proposed replacing the French-based
educational curriculum with one emphasizing indigenous languages.
As an absolute ruler, Kérékou dissolved all political structures and drove away
all democratic groups and every form of opposition with ferocity. Michael Aikpe,
the Minister of Interior of Benin Republic and the man who had spearheaded the 1972 coup, met
a tragic death at the hands of Kérékou and his goons.
President Kerekou had burst into the house of Aikpe where he found him committing adultery
with Mrs. Kerekou, and had him shot and killed as he tried to run away naked.
There are also claims that he was killed for having political ambitions.
In 1973, Major Jean Baptiste Hacheme and Major Chabi Kao were jailed for dissidence.
Two years later, Kérékou sentenced Captain Jamie Assogba and Betin Boma,
the former minister of finance, to death for opposing him.
In October 1975, 11 others were sentenced to death for plotting against Mathieu Kérékou.
By 1977, however, the opposition had had enough of Kérékou’s antics.
Exiles, aided by foreign mercenaries including Bob Denard,
landed at the Cotonou airport in Benin, and attempted to seize power.
The attempt failed, but it provided ample opportunity for Kérékou to clamp down on
opposition; several exiled individuals were sentenced to death in absentia.
During this time, the economy of the country was on its knees. A major factor that caused this was
corruption. Corruption became rife in Benin and became even more significant by the mid-1980s.
The level of corruption ranged from the familiar terrain of theft from state owned
enterprises as well as the addition of 'ghost' workers to the pay-roll.
Finally it moved to the removal of the liquid assets of the entire state banking system.
Mathieu Kérékou, and his cronies looted the state-owned banking system
so thoroughly that nothing was left to pay the salaries of the teachers and civil servants,
some of whom were owed as much as twelve months’ pay.
Three state-owned banks collapsed in 1988 as a result of large unsecured loans awarded to
members of Kérékou’s inner circle, as well as the bogus companies they had set up.
According to the World Bank, these loans amounted to $500 million.
It was subsequently discovered that his closest adviser,
Mohammed Cissé had been in the habit of sitting in the manager’s office at the Commercial Bank,
transferring millions of dollars to his bank accounts in Europe and the United States.
In 1988 alone Cissé was estimated to have sent $370 million abroad.
With the entire state banking and credit system drained of all liquid funds, normal business
activity ground to a halt. Companies could not operate and traders could neither sell nor buy.
The masses became disgruntled and over time student protest over unpaid grants grew into
a general mobilisation against Kérékou’s regime involving teachers, civil servants, workers and
church groups. They were now applying pressure on the Kérékou regime for political reforms.
Over time his People’s Revolutionary Party became less revolutionary and
captivated fewer and fewer people. But Kérékou was nothing if not adaptable.
He pursued an increasingly moderate socialist agenda as the economy worsened,
following the lead of other nations around the world in abandoning Marxism altogether in 1989.
The army, too, was restless, bubbling with plots to depose the incumbent.
In one incident unpaid soldiers hijacked shipments of banknotes that had been sent in
from abroad to alleviate the economic crisis. Only Kérékou’s elite Presidential Guard,
drawn exclusively from his northern ethnic group, remained loyal.
Common to all the strikes and demonstrations that erupted in Benin during 1989 were demands
for the payment of salary arrears but the focus turned increasingly on the call for democracy.
When Kérékou requested Western aid to pay salary arrears,
he was turned down. By December of 1989,
Kerekou had been forced to make concessions and promised constitutional reform.
The unrelenting protests against Kérékou’s regime resulted in the convening of the 1990 Sovereign
National Conference, which was mandated to work out a new way of governance for the country.
The conference, presided over by one Dr. Nicéphore Soglo, an intellectual and former International
Monetary Fund expert, was the first of its kind in Africa. Initially, Kérékou did everything he could
to frustrate the convocation of the national conference, but it thrived against all odds.
In what was intended to be a show of strength, Kérékou walked among demonstrators in downtown
Cotonou, the country's largest city and economic capital, but was booed and jostled.
For the first time, government-controlled television screened pictures showing
demonstrators waving anti-government placards. When the national conference duly met for nine
days in February 1990, its proceedings, broadcast live on radio and television,
openly revealed the level of corruption of Kérékou’s military regime.
The discussions from the conference eventually culminated in multiparty elections.
The elections in Benin’s for the legislation and presidency were scheduled in 1991
and they were the country’s first proper contest for power since independence.
International observers judged them to have been generally free and fair.
In the presidential election Soglo stood against Kérékou, defeating him by a resounding margin.
Following his defeat, Kérékou apologised for abusing power during his tenure of
office, pledged his ‘deep, sincere and irreversible desire for change’
and was granted immunity from prosecution.
In spite of his tyrannical showings earlier on, it is interesting that Kérékou refused to use
the incumbency factor to hold on to power by all means necessary during the process
of transition to multiparty democracy. Indeed, he was credited with the wisdom
of reading the trend of events correctly and so did not exploit it to perpetuate himself.
Benin thus became the first African state in which the army was forced from power
by civilians and the first in which an incumbent president was defeated at the polls.
When Mathieu Kérékou was defeated in the elections of 1991, the former president bowed
out and went into a sort of voluntary political exile in his home region.
But in a few years time he would be back on the political scene.
His return was as dramatic as his exit had been. In the 1996 presidential elections
he presented himself as a candidate. In the first round of the elections, neither
Soglo, who was seeking reelection, nor Kérékou received the necessary 53 per cent of the vote.
In the run-off election that followed, Mathieu Kérékou won.
The inability of Soglo to actually reform the economy of the hapless country was,
however, to cost him his exalted position after his first term.
On April 4, 1996, in a colorful ceremony that Soglo refused to attend, Kérékou was sworn in
as the democratically elected president of Benin. He was then re-elected in the elections of 2001.
The country’s Constitution limited him to two terms and in any case barred him from
running again because by the time that his second term was over, he was older than 70.
In 2005, after dominating Beninese politics for nearly three decades,
Mathieu Kérékou, then 72, announced that he would not try to overturn the two-term limit.
“If you don’t leave power,” he said, “power will leave you.
After leaving office in 2006, Kérékou stayed out of politics
and spent time at his homes in Cotonou as well as his home town
in northwestern Benin, his native region. He had health issues in 2014 and was taken to
Paris for treatment. Although he recovered, he continued to suffer health problems.
Mathieu Kérékou died in Benin on 14 October 2015, he was 82 years old.
Though he started off as a dictator, Kérékou was hailed for peacefully
transition that occurred in 1991. Benin thus symbolized not only a
sincere attempt at democratic transition in Africa, but a landmark victory for democracy.
Events in Benin inspired other countries across the continent to move towards democracy.
Benin started a wave of democratic transitions through similar national conferences,
which swept the DRC, the Republic of Congo, Togo, Burundi, Rwanda and Niger in the 1990s.
But Benin’s 1991 transition stands out because unlike many of those that followed,
the West African nation’s shift neither followed nor sparked a civil war.
And this is part of Mathieu Kérékou’s legacy. Let me know in the comments section below what
your thoughts are on Mathieu Kérékou of Benin, the dictator turned democrat.
Don’t be shy to like and share the video if you enjoyed it. Thank you all for tuning in,
this has been Tatenda for African Biographics. Until next time, cheers, have a good one.