CAF president Patrice Motsepe
Guinea, chosen in 2014 to stage the premier African national team tournament, withdrew last year after little progress had been made in preparing for the biennial event.
CAF officials will do inspection tours of all the candidates this month with the winners to be announced on February 10.
South African billionaire businessman Motsepe said the successful country or countries would offer the best "transport, logistics, hotels and beautiful stadiums".
"Each region will have a chance to organise a CAN (Cup of Nations). We cannot assign the organisation of the CAN successively to the same region."
Benin and Nigeria are in west Africa, as are the Ivory Coast, who will host the 2023 Cup of Nations.
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