Tabiou Taffa is from Bassar in the Kara Region of northern Togo. He worked as Director of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Technical Education and Vocational Training for a time and was a member of CENI during the April 2005 presidential election as well as the October 2007 parliamentary election. He was subsequently a Technical Adviser to the Ministry of Territorial Administration, and he was sworn in as one of the 17 members of CENI on 1 September 2009, in preparation for the 2010 presidential election. Tabiou Taffa was appointed to CENI as one of three representatives of civil society.