Resigned from his post as president of the Constitutional Court of Benin on Tuesday, Joseph Djogbénou did not use the spoon to announce his return to politics. The now former president of the Constitutional Court made this known during a press conference held on Wednesday in Cotonou.
Things went more quickly than expected. On Wednesday 13 July 2022, precisely the day after his resignation, Me Joseph Djogbénou, President of the Constitutional Court passed the baton to Vice-President Razaki Amadou who is now acting as interim President. “This decision is necessitated by the appeal both of my conscience, but also of what results from the analysis of the political situation that I personally have been able to make, and to consider that I wished to take up political commitment where I had left it,” he said to justify his departure.
At the end of the handover ceremony, Joseph Djogbénou held a press conference to give details of his resignation. In front of the media, he confirmed his commitment to his political family, the Progressive Union. “It is necessary to find one’s political family and mine is the Progressive Union. Wishing that his return would be accepted by his political family, Joseph Djogbénou said he would be a candidate for whatever his party, the Progressive Union, would entrust to him.
What Me Djogbénou aims to achieve
The resignation of Joseph Djogbénou from the Constitutional Court comes a few months before the 2023 legislative elections. According to some indiscretions, it is very likely that he would have his eyes riveted on the hemicycle. Others even have a premonition that he will be the man in the chair in 2023. Me Joseph Djogbénou likely to be Patrice Talon’s successor? This should not be surprising. A lawyer and professor of private law at the University of Abomey-Calavi, the resigning president is very loyal to President Patrice Talon. He was his personal lawyer before the election of the latter to the head of the country in 2016, then his Minister of Justice before becoming head of the Constitutional Court of Benin.
His decisions as president of the constitutional court have always been criticised by the opposition as he has been called a “partisan president” of the Talon government.
