Does this happen to you?

For example:

Banjul > Bangui, not alphabetical l/i

Maseru/Mbabane, yes alphabetical a/b

Or in clusters by looking at a map:

Nouakchok>Bamako>Ouagadougou

Harare>Lusaka>Maputo

Find some short chains you can memorize like a chant. Assuming you have the map outline memorized. Draw the map a few times by memory to remember it better

Learn something about the country that's easy to remember, like, Mauritania: that's the one that has the decrepit train that goes to the coast, so it's the one closer to the coast. "Would You Ride Africa's Worst Train? | 18 Hours In A Freight Truck"

Learning outlines helps a lot too

Also, I always do the COTW in the same order, which helps enormously with memorization.

Starting in Canada, working down US/Mexico to Central America, the Caribbean, then counterclockwise around South America, starting with Suriname. I then go to Iceland and make a clockwise spiral around Europe, moving on to a zigzag all the way down Africa, beginning in Morocco and ending on Madagascar. Skipping to Asia, I start in Turkey and work north to south, east to west until I reach East Timor, when I begin one final counterclockwise spiral around Oceania to finish off