Benin: after a month of blockage, Prefect Laurent Zomaï was installed this Wednesday, June 10.

The handover between the outgoing prefect of Zou, Daniel Valère Sètonnougbo, and the designated successor, Laurent Zomaï, is scheduled for this Wednesday, June 10, at the prefecture of Abomey, the capital of the department located about 140 kilometers north of Cotonou, according to a notification by radio message sent to the relevant structures on the evening of Tuesday, June 9, as reported by the government daily La Nation.

This installation, if it takes place, will end a five-week period of blockage triggered by an administrative sanction from the Public Procurement Regulation Authority (ARMP). Appointed prefect of Zou during the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, June 3 – the first of Romuald Wadagni’s government – Laurent Dhossou Zomaï immediately faced a decision from the ARMP dated April 16, 2026, which excluded him from public procurement for a period of five years and his establishment “Zom-Espace” for two years. The ARMP accused him of having produced a non-authentic manufacturer’s authorization during a request for information and pricing for the acquisition of materials and furniture for the Ministry of Justice and Legislation in 2025.

A first handover ceremony, scheduled for Friday, June 5, was abruptly canceled without official explanation. Mayors of the nine municipalities of Zou, departmental directors, customary authorities, and local personalities had already arrived at the prefecture of Abomey when the secretary-general of the prefecture, Julien Ouankpo, announced the postponement. Neither Zomaï nor Sètonnougbo were present.

A double procedure before the Supreme Court

The judicial sequence began the day after the appointment. On Friday, June 6, the Supreme Court of Benin granted a stay of execution of the ARMP sanction pending a substantive examination, allowing Zomaï to claim his position. Several Beninese media had then announced a possible installation on Monday, June 8, or Tuesday, June 9, which did not materialize.

On the afternoon of Monday, June 8, ruling on the merits before the administrative chamber, the Supreme Court annulled the decision of the ARMP. The high court retained an exclusively procedural reason: the ARMP had violated the seven-day legal deadline imposed by law when it took up a public procurement procedure on its own initiative. Zomaï was represented by Me Aziz Onifadé, the ARMP by Me Paul Avlessi. The debates were conducted summarily, as the procedure before the Supreme Court is primarily written, according to La Nation.

The ruling of June 8 removes the administrative obstacle to the assumption of office but does not decide the substantive issue: the authenticity or otherwise of the manufacturer’s authorization produced by Zomaï during the 2025 procedure. The initial ARMP decision also referred the file of the establishment Zom-Espace to the public prosecutor near the Parakou Tribunal, a separate criminal procedure on which the Supreme Court has not ruled and which remains pending.

An economic operator affiliated with the presidential coalition

Founder of the Youth Consultation Framework (CCJ) and founding member of the Republican Bloc, one of the two parties in the ruling coalition, Laurent Dhossou Zomaï is originally from the Mono department in the southwest of Benin. His appointment as prefect of Zou is among several prefectural appointments finalized during the first Council of Ministers of the Wadagni government, inaugurated on May 24, 2026.

The Zou department, with Abomey as its capital and the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey, includes nine municipalities. It has been under interim administration since the death of the incumbent prefect Firmin Kouton. The prefecture of Abomey is about 140 kilometers north of Cotonou, the capital of the Littoral department and the main economic city of Benin.

The handover ceremony on June 10 takes place in a context where the affair has been widely followed in the Beninese press, due to the coincidence between the prefectural appointment and the ARMP sanction, and the unexplained postponement of the first ceremony on June 5.