We only have rainy and dry seasons in Africa, and both are suitable for football games, but we will not modify our calendar to accommodate some of our players who are playing elsewhere! No way! We set our date to accommodate all the leagues in Africa.
Then I'd say you're the one being ignorant here, African Cup of Nations have never been about accommodating leagues in Africa alone ?! Do you know know that almost all leagues in Africa are on right now including Nigeria and Ghana just to name a few, why would African Nations Cup be on when the attention of the fans would be divided by their national league ? even for publicity and exposure that's not a wise decision. Africa already have two tournaments in place for home and national based players already CHAN and WAFU.
And that's because Covid19 messed with most of the main leagues' calendars, and there was no better moment than now given other competitions coming up, and to be clear, most of Europe's top five leagues work with the same or almost the same calendar, unlike African leagues, I too, would like to see the AFCON time fixed at a very convenient time, similar to the Euros and other competitions, but the level of corruption in CAF is a topic for another post. You do, however, make some sense.
I repeat the major reason from AFCON is been held in January have always been about the weather it's easier to play in winter (dry season as you'd have it), than rainy season (summer), how many countries have multiple standard pitches that can be used consecutively during the rainy season ?!
There are standards stadiums all over the Africa, don't say something you don't know about they had hosted both the female, male under 17, 20, and main world up and we all observed the excellent standards of field that the competition was played in. It low compared to the European stadiums though but they are fine for football.
And Just so you know: This edition of the Tournament was meant to be played in the Summer of 2021 after it was initially postponed.
Every human knows this!