List of CommonWealth Countries in Africa – 2023 Updated

There are confusion as to how many countries are in the commonwealth, are they either 53 or 54 countries in the CommonWealth?

If you’re asking How many countries are in the Commonwealth, I have pulled the answer directly from the official CommonWealth website.

Commonwealth Countries.

There are 54 Commonwealth countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Americas, Europe and the Pacific.

Here’s a list of all countries in Africa that are in the Commonwealth. This list is carefully arranged in an alphabetic order.

CommonWealth Countries in Africa 2023.

1. Botswana.
2. Cameroon.
3. eSwatini.
4. Gambia.
5. Ghana.
6. Kenya.
7. Lesotho.
8. Malawi.
9. Mauritius.
10. Mozambique.
11. Namibia.
12. Nigeria.
13. Rwanda.
14. Seychelles.
15. Sierra Leone.
16. South Africa.
17. Tanzania.
18. Uganda.
19. Zambia.

There are currently, a total of Nineteen (19) African countries in the commonwealth.

History of CommonWealth Countries in Africa.

Right now, September 28, 2023, there are nineteen Commonwealth member states in Africa, and out of these 19 states (countries), seven are landlocked, the only such countries in the association.

South Africa was a founder member in the early 1930s, precisely, in 1931 when its independence was officially recognised under the Statute of Westminster, but its membership lapsed in 1961, when its apartheid policies were no longer in agreement with the Commonwealth’s fundamental values.

However, South Africa was welcomed back into the Commonwealth state after it successfully had a democratic election in 1994, in accordance with the fundamental values of the Commonwealth.

Ghana, a West African country joined on independence in 1957, followed in the 1960s by 13 other newly independent countries across the African continent, while Namibia joined on independence in 1990. Cameroon joined in October 1995, and Mozambique, which had always been eager to join the association and had been connected with it throughout the long Southern African struggle for racial equality, was admitted in late 1995, in the month of November.

The latest and newest member of the Commonwealth countries in Africa was added in November 2009, when Rwanda became the 54th member.

The African countries in the Commonwealth comprise 16 republics and two monarchies, Lesotho and Swaziland.

All the republics have executive presidents except for Mauritius, where the prime minister leads the government, just like the United Kingdom and India. English is an official language in all the African states that are members of the commonwealth, except Mozambique, where Portuguese is the sole official language. In Cameroon and Rwanda English and French are official languages.

A Nigerian, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, was the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth for 10 years, starting as SG in 1990 to 2000. The biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was held in Africa in 1979 (Lusaka, Zambia); 1991 (Harare, Zimbabwe, a member until 2003); 1999 (Durban, South Africa); 2003.