Ghana have been seeded for the 2012 Nations Cup draw, the Confederation of African Football has announced.
The four-time champions will join Ivory Coast and co-hosts Gabon and Equatorial Guinea for the event on 28 October in Malabo.
This means the Black Stars will avoid playing Ivory Coast and the co-hosts in the group phase of the competition.
The Black Stars were ranked number one with 22 points after the classification of the seeded teams.
"To the exception of the co-hosts (Gabon and Equatorial Guinea), the 14 qualified teams will be ranked based on their performances during the last three Africa Cup of Nations, i.e. the 2006, 2008 and 2010 editions," Caf said.
Both Ghana and Ivory are the top seeded teams of groups B and D while the co-hosts, Equatorial Guinea take A and Gabon placed in C.
The remaining twelve teams will be categorized into three Pots (Pot 1, 2 and 3) based on their results in the last three editions of the ACN in 2006, 2008 and 2010.
The remaining qualifiers are Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Libya, Niger, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia and Zambia.
They make up the field of 16 for the tournament from 21 January to 12 February.