ABUJA – This week’s coup attempt in the small West African country of Benin underscores the increasing fragility of democracy on the continent. Multiple factors are driving this trend, but chief among them are the decimation of opposition political forces through legal and constitutional maneuvers designed to favor incumbents; broad-based governance failures; and the expansion of jihadist terrorism across the Sahel (which covers much of West Africa). Clearly, the heady days of the early 1990s are long gone. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse, many of its former client states, including Benin, pivoted from military dictatorships to formal electoral democracies. The end of the Cold War had ushered in a unipolar world, dominated by an American hegemon that was keen to export Western-style multiparty democracy – often tying it to the provision of development aid. But the rituals of periodic election cycles have proved more performative than substantive. Autocratic high-handedness and constitutional manipulation by several leaders, including Benin’s current president, Patrice