The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has appointed former Ghanaian President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to lead its Election Observation Mission to Nigeria ahead of the January 2027 general elections.
The appointment was announced in a statement issued by the Office of the Former President on Thursday, November 12, 2026.
According to the statement, Akufo-Addo will oversee the deployment of regional election observers for Nigeria’s presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for January 16, 2027.
ECOWAS is expected to deploy a 200-member observer mission in line with its Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, adopted in 2001.
The observation team will comprise representatives of foreign affairs ministries, electoral commissions and ECOWAS ambassadors accredited to Nigeria.
Other members will be drawn from the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, the regional bloc’s Court of Justice and Parliament, electoral management bodies of member states, civil society organisations, media practitioners and election experts from across West Africa.
The deployment is part of ECOWAS’ regional election monitoring framework, which mandates the organisation to observe electoral processes in member states in accordance with its democratic governance principles.
Akufo-Addo served as Ghana’s President from January 2017 to January 2025, completing two constitutional terms before handing over power to his successor, John Dramani Mahama.
The former Ghanaian leader previously headed the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to Benin during its presidential election in April 2026.
