Former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will head a 200-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Election Observation Mission to Nigeria ahead of the country’s January 16, 2027, presidential and National Assembly elections.
The appointment places the former Ghanaian leader at the head of a regional team mandated to observe the electoral process and support efforts towards credible and transparent elections.
His selection was announced in a statement issued by his office on Thursday, November 12, 2026.
The mission will operate under the ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, adopted in 2001, which provides the framework for the regional body’s interventions in democratic governance and electoral processes.
The 200-member delegation will bring together representatives from different institutions and sectors across West Africa.
Its membership will include officials from ministries of foreign affairs, national electoral commissions and ECOWAS ambassadors accredited to Abuja.
Representatives of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, the ECOWAS Court of Justice and the ECOWAS Parliament will also form part of the team.
Civil society organisations, media practitioners and electoral commission officials from ECOWAS member states are expected to participate in the observation exercise.
The deployment is part of ECOWAS’s broader efforts to promote democratic governance, strengthen electoral institutions and encourage peaceful and credible elections across the West African sub-region.
Akufo-Addo served as Ghana’s fifth President under the Fourth Republic from January 2017 to January 2025.
