World leaders are gathering in Ghana for the funeral of the late president John Atta Mills, who died suddenly on July 24.

Mr. Mills was Ghana's third democratically-elected president.

Vice President John Dramani Mahama took the oath of office hours after Mr. Mills death. The smooth transition of power underscores Ghana's roles as one of Africa's most stable democracies.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will be among those attending the funeral. She is set to hold talks in Accra with Mr. Mahama.

She is then scheduled to pay a visit to Benin — her last stop on her African tour.

Clinton met with Nigeria's president Thursday and urged him to step up efforts to combat growing extremist violence in the country's north and central regions.

Officials traveling with Clinton said she told President Goodluck Jonathan and top Nigerian security authorities that Washington stands ready to help train police and anti-terror units in the fight against Boko Haram militants. The Islamist extremist group is blamed for scores of attacks and more than 600 deaths this year alone, as it seeks to implement strict Islamic law across the country of 160 million people.

Rights groups say Boko Haram has mainly targeted authority figures, government buildings, and churches since 2010, in a country split roughly in half between the Muslim-dominated north and largely Christian south.

The Abuja government has so far been unable to stop the bloodshed.

Clinton also encouraged government efforts to improve transparency and curb official graft in a country consistently ranked as one of the world's most corrupt.