Royal News :
The Royal House Of Maharaja Adinda Aranan under the Royal Order Of Maharaja Adinda Aranan of Sulu appointed The President Of Republic Of Benin, His Most Excellency Datu Laksamana Di Raja Thomas Boni Yayi as the Grand Commander Of The Royal Order.
Thomas Boni Yayi (born 1 July 1952) is a Beninese banker and
politician who was President of Benin from 2006 to 2016. He took office after
winning the March 2006 presidential election and was re-elected to a second
term in March 2011. He also served as the Chairperson of the African Union from
29 January 2012 to 27 January 2013.
Early life and banking career
Boni was born in Tchaourou, in the Borgou Department in
northern Benin, then the French colony of Dahomey. He received his education
first in the regional capital of Parakou before moving on to earn a Master's
degree in economics at the National University of Benin. He then pursued an
additional Master's Degree in economics at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in
Dakar, Senegal, and then earned a doctorate in economics and politics at the
University of Orléans in France and at Paris Dauphine University, where he
completed a doctorate in economics in 1976.
At the end of his education, Boni began a long career in
banking. From 1975 until 1979 he worked at the Benin Commercial Bank before
moving to work at the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) from 1977
until 1989. From 1992 until 1994, he served as an economic adviser to the
President of Benin Nicéphore Soglo. In 1994 he left this position to become the
President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD).
Presidency
Boni stood as one of 26 candidates in the March 2006
presidential election. The sitting president, Mathieu Kérékou, had been a
dominant force in the politics of the country since the early 1970s and there
were serious doubts about him agreeing to allow a transition of power. Boni
surprised many by earning 35.8% of the vote in the first round as an independent
candidate. The main parts of his campaign were to improve governance, stimulate
the private sector, improve educational opportunities for women, and modernize the
agricultural sector. His closest competitor was Adrien Houngbédji of Soglo's
Party for Democratic Renewal who received 25 percent. In the runoff between
Boni and Houngbédji on 19 March 2006, Boni won with almost 75 percent of the
vote. He took office on 6 April 2006. The 2006 election saw high voter turnout
and was considered free and fair by independent election observers.
In the 2007 parliamentary elections, a coalition that was
led by the Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin (FCBE) and supported Boni earned
the largest share of seats. This coalition broke apart by 2010 and prevented
the passage of many parts of Boni's agenda. By August 2010, an increasingly
unified coalition was able to get a majority of the parliament to vote to
impeach Boni for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme that took the savings of
100,000 people in Benin. While they did not get the required two-thirds
majority to remove Boni from power, the opposition agreed to organize around
Houngbédji in the 2011 presidential election.
A new voter system in the country was widely criticized by
the opposition, and with the assistance of international organizations, Boni
agreed to a two week delay in the 2011 presidential election. The result of the
election, deemed free and fair by international election monitors, was a
victory for Boni on the first round with 53.8% of the vote. Houngbédji, who
received 36%, challenged the election and took the case to the Constitutional
Court. The court named Boni as the winner on March 21, 2011, resulting in
large-scale protests and police repression of those demonstrations. Although
protests continued, the opposition had largely fractured and Boni's coalition
earned 49 of the 83 seats in the parliamentary elections that followed. Boni
was the first president since the restoration of democracy to win the
presidency in a single round.
Having served two terms in office, Yayi Boni was
constitutionally required to step down in 2016. His preferred successor, Prime
Minister Lionel Zinsou, was defeated in the March 2016 presidential election by
Patrice Talon, and Yayi Boni was succeeded by Talon on 6 April 2016.
Assassination attempts
Yayi Boni with the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff
On March 15, 2007, Yayi Boni survived an ambush on his
convoy near the village of Ikemon while returning from an election campaign
rally in the town Ouesse for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The
attackers blocked the road with downed trees, and fired upon the vehicle that
usually carries the President; however President Boni was traveling in a
separate vehicle. Several of his entourage were wounded in the ensuing
crossfire between the presidential guard and the would-be assassins. However
this information remains unproven since all sources claiming the assassination
attempt come from the president's camp. The verification of such information
remains impossible to date.
On October 23, 2012, the BBC reported that the president's
doctor, niece, and former commerce minister had been arrested in a plot to
poison the president. Patrice Talon, a former ally of the president and
businessman, had reportedly paid the niece to substitute the President's
medicine with a "toxic substance" while he was on a state visit to
Brussels.
Personal life
Originally from a Muslim family, Boni is now an Evangelical
Protestant. He has five children, and his wife Chantal (née de Souza), a native
of the coastal city of Ouidah, is the niece of the former President Paul-Émile
de Souza and the great granddaughter of Francisco Felix de Sousa, also known as
Chacha de Souza, who was a Brazilian slave trader and the Viceroy of Ouidah. A
descendant of the Yoruba princes of Sabe in his own right, both Yayi Boni and
his wife were awarded chieftaincy titles by the Nigerian king of Ile-Ife in
2008.
