The Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, will leave Abuja on Monday evening to join 59 other world leaders in South Africa at events leading up to the burial of former President Nelson Mandela.
A statement by the government’s spokesman, Reuben Abati, says the President Jonathan who will be accompanied by the Supervising Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Viola Onwuliri.
“The president and the minister will attend the Memorial Service for Dr. Mandela on Tuesday at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg,” the statement read.
The President will, in the company of other Heads of State and Government, also pay his last respects to Dr. Mandela at the anti-apartheid hero’s lying-in-state on Wednesday at the Union Building in Pretoria where he served as South Africa’s first democratically-elected President.
At the conclusion of the event in Pretoria on Wednesday, President Jonathan will leave for Nairobi to honour a long-standing invitation to be a guest of honour at Kenya’s 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations.
He will return to Abuja on Thursday, December 12, 2013.