President John Mahama yesterday addressed the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, which opened in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
By the feat he became the only head of state invited to speak at the Opening Ceremony of the 20 th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) in the Ethiopian capital.
According to the official programme for the opening ceremony, which started at 0700hrs GMT (10am Ethiopian Time), President Mahama delivered his statement before the opening statement by the AU Chairman.
There were other statements by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon and the Chairperson of the AU Commission Dr. Dlamini-Zuma.
The Assembly observed a minute of silence in memory of the late President John Evans Atta Mills, and Ethiopia’s late Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi.
The meeting, which was the 22 nd Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the Union, had a lengthy agenda including the election of a new Chairperson, adoption of a statute for a Pan-African University, a report on boosting intra-African trade and a proposal by Nigeria for a follow-up summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases.
President Mahama, who arrived in Addis Ababa on Saturday, spent the last week attending an ECOWAS Emergency Summit on Mali and paying an official visit to the Republic of Turkey.