The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has appointed former Ghanaian President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to head its Election Observation Mission to Nigeria ahead of the January 2027 general elections.
The appointment was announced in a statement released by the Office of the Former President on Thursday, November 12, 2026.
According to the statement, Akufo-Addo will oversee the deployment of election observers for Nigeria’s presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled to hold on January 16, 2027.
ECOWAS is expected to deploy a 200-member observer team in accordance with its Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, adopted in 2001.
The mission will comprise representatives of foreign affairs ministries, electoral commissions and ECOWAS ambassadors accredited to Nigeria.
Other participants will be drawn from the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, the regional bloc’s Court of Justice and Parliament, electoral bodies of member states, civil society organisations, media practitioners and election specialists from across West Africa.
The deployment forms part of ECOWAS's regional election monitoring framework, which mandates the organisation to observe electoral processes in member states in line 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.
Before his latest appointment, the former Ghanaian leader headed the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to Benin during its presidential election in April 2026.
2027: ECOWAS appoints ex-Ghanaian President Akufo-Addo to lead observers