Benin - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

African champions Ivory Coast held to draw by Benin

Oumar Diakite scored a second-half equaliser to spare the blushes of newly-crowned African champions Ivory Coast who were held to a 2-2 draw by Benin in a friendly in Amiens, France. It was the first game for coach Emerse Fae since his side lifted the Cup of Nations title on home soil last month, but they had to come behind twice to draw after a lacklustre performance. Benin midfielder Junior Olaitan opened the scoring before winger Max Gradel equalised just before the half-hour mark. Olaitan’s second goal put Benin on course for victory before Diakite equalised again after 69 minutes.…

May

2023

By SETH ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Five African countries to join tier-topping economic growth list amid GDP rebound

NEWS

BENIN, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Tanzania are on course to post some of the strongest economic growth rates globally - a show of resilience in the face of troubling global headwinds. A robust combination of domestic policy reforms, increased investment and strategic sectors will mark those nations' outstanding economic outcomes, according to the African Economic Outlook 2023. The countries are bright spots in a continental economy still shaking off residual pandemic shocks. Amid a flurry of global and local challenges, African economies are exhibiting impressive overall resilience, however, with average growth predicted to stabilise at 4% in 2023-24, surpassing…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Angelique Kidjo in line for a record sixth Grammy Award

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

ANGELIQUE Kidjo, the energetic singer-songwriter and activist from the Republic of Benin, represents a rare African phenomenon. In many respects, she belongs to the illustrious musical lineage of “Mama Africas” – the likes of South Africa’s Miriam Makeba, Letta Mbulu and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Cape Verde’s Cesaria Evora and Mali’s Oumou Sangare. Author SANYA OSHA, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town These powerful maternal personages are distinctive for their regal bearing, a grand sense of responsibility in sharing Africa’s cultural heritage, and protecting the dignity of the African woman. They may not always articulate…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Voodoo dances, rituals wow tourists at Benin festival

NEWS

PULCHERIE ADJOHA and SERAPHIN ZOUNYEKPE ON Benin's national voodoo holiday, performers dressed as guardians of the night swirled in costumes resembling technicolour haystacks, delighting worshippers and tourists alike. Over a thousand people gathered in the small Atlantic coast town of Ouidah on Tuesday, once an important port in the slave trade, to watch the elaborate annual rituals of dance and drumming to honour the 500-year-old religion's panoply of gods and spirits. "They come in increasing numbers because voodoo is no longer considered sorcery, it is no longer considered barbarism," said voodoo spiritual leader Daagbo Hounon Houna II, adorned in colourful…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Benin holds election set to test democracy

NEWS

PULCHERIE ADJOHA VOTERS in Benin went to the polls for a parliamentary election seen as a test of democracy as opposition parties are back on the ballot after boycotting or being excluded from the most recent presidential and legislative votes. Benin's image as a bastion of democracy and stability in West Africa has been dented under President Patrice Talon, who went back on a pledge not to run for another term and oversaw an opposition crackdown since coming to power in 2016. Seven parties are competing for 109 parliamentary seats in Sunday's vote, including the Democrates party linked to Talon's predecessor and…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Benin is building a theme park to remember slavery – is history up for sale?

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE Marina Project is a vast memorial and tourist complex under construction in Ouidah, a coastal town in the Republic of Benin in West Africa. The country hopes to market itself as a major destination for Afro-descendant tourists in the diaspora. Neighbouring Nigeria and its population of 220 million potential visitors also make serene and diminutive Benin an enviable location for large-scale tourist attractions. Author DOMINIQUE SOMDA, Junior research fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town The waterfront development is located at what was the main slave port for the Bight of Benin. From this region…

Oct

2022

By The African Mirror

Cotton exporter Benin developing home-grown textile industry

NEWS

PULCHERIE ADJOHA ON a large factory floor in southwestern Benin, dozens of young people cut, stitch and assemble cotton shirts - part of a major push by the West African country to develop its textile sector. Benin has in the last few years become Africa's leading cotton producer, with an annual production of 728,000 tonnes in 2020/21, according to government figures. It exports almost all of that raw, with the majority going to Bangladesh. Now, an initiative is underway to create jobs and revenue by processing the cotton locally, with the goal of exporting apparel to consumer markets in Europe,…

Jul

2022

By VICTOR EYIKE, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Nearly 800 years later, the fires of the Benin Bronze casters still blaze

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

STANDING in Igun street, the centre of African bronze casting for the past ten centuries, Alex Agbonmwenre could tell a story about the British forces that razed Edo and destroyed the Benin Empire, carrying off the famous bronze figures made for the court hundreds of years before, in this very street. But as a bronze caster, he is focused on the story of the craft itself. And his story starts way before the arrival of the first Europeans in this part of the world. It begins with a skilled artisan arriving at a walled, well-organised city in around 1280, during…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Nigerian Yoruba activist detained in Benin

NEWS

A Nigerian activist accused by the authorities of plotting a violent insurrection has been detained in neighbouring Benin and is due to be sent back to Nigeria, according to reports in Nigerian media. Sunday Adeyemo, more commonly known in Nigeria by his nickname of Sunday Igboho, was arrested on Monday at Cotonou airport while on his way to Germany, according to media reports citing a lawyer and other Nigerian sources with links to Igboho. A spokesman for Nigeria's Department of State Services (DSS), a security agency that raided Igboho's residence in the southwestern city of Ibadan on July 1 and…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 delays Sierra Leone v Benin match

COVID-19

THE 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier between Sierra Leone and Benin that was rescheduled from March descended into farce yesterday after it was alleged minutes before kickoff that six of the Leone Stars players had tested positive for COVID-19. The match in neutral Guinea has been postponed again to Tuesday after Confederation of African Football (CAF) officials sought to quell the angry protests of Sierra Leone, having relayed to them during their warm-up that six players and two members of the technical team had tested positive. According to local media, the team management disputed the results supplied by the…