The African Union (AU) has invited President John Dramani Mahama to deliver an address to the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, which opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Sunday.

President Mahama will be the only head of state invited to speak at the Opening Ceremony of the 20th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Union.

According to the official programme for the Opening Ceremony, which starts at 0700hrs GMT (10am Ethiopian Time), President Mahama, who was elected in December and sworn in earlier this month as President of the Republic of Ghana, will deliver his statement before the opening statement by the AU Chairman.

There will be other statements by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon and the Chairperson of the AU Commission Dr. Dlamini-Zuma. The Assembly will also observe 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 will also be the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the Union, has 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.