Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari traveled to neighboring Cameroon Wednesday to ease tensions and discuss the regional fight against the Boko Haram terror group. Buhari met with his Cameroonian counterpart, President Paul Biya, in the capital Yaoundé for talks aimed at building a stronger coalition to battle the Islamist militants, according to the Associated Press.
It was Buhari’s first official trip to Cameroon since he took office May 29. The visit came eight weeks after he visited Chad and Niger, two other neighboring countries that have also suffered from the Nigeria-based insurgency. All three West African countries are contributing to Nigeria's battle against Boko Haram, but hard feelings that date back decades have strained relations between Nigeria and Cameroon.
Cameroon’s president, Biya, saw Buhari’s failure to visit sooner as a snub and didn’t attend his presidential inauguration. Nigeria has accused Cameroon of not doing enough to fight Boko Haram and prevent the militants from crossing onto Cameroonian soil. The two countries had previously argued the rights over their oil-rich land border and its local populations, which escalated into military confrontation at the end of 1993. The dispute was finally resolved in 2006.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari (second left) flanked by Benin's President Boni Yayi (left), Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou (second right) and Chadian President Idriss Deby pose after taking part in the summit of the Lake Chad Basin Commission in Abuja on June 11, 2015. PHILIP OJISUA/AFP/Getty Images
In recent months, Boko Haram militants have launched attacks across borders targeting Cameroon, Niger and Chad that have claimed dozens of lives. Suicide bombings blamed on the terror group killed 60 people in Cameroon over the past week. In a bid to stem the recent spate of violence, authorities in northern Cameroon on Sunday ordered the shutter of mosques and Islamic schools, and also banned child beggars after a young suicide bomber posed as one, according to AP.
“Those are the last kicks of a dying monster,” Cameroon’s defense minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o reportedly said on Tuesday.
An 8,700-strong Multi-National Joint Task Force was scheduled to be deployed in November and a new commander is expected to be named after Buhari appointed its former Nigerian leader, Major General tukur Yusuf Buratai, as chief of staff of Nigeria’s army. A spokesman for Buhari, Garba Shehu, said the regional troops will be operation “at the end of this month,” according to Agence France-Presse.
Buhari, a former military ruler, has sworn to crush the Boko Haram militants, whose six-year campaign for a strict Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria has taken the lives of at least 15,000 people and displaced millions. After replacing his top military commanders, the Nigerian leader met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House last week, seeking U.S. military aid.
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