1 | Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari is set to make his first official visit to one-time enemy Cameroon Wednesday to ease tensions and bolster support for a multinational army to fight the Boko Haram uprising that has spilled across borders. |
2 | The long-anticipated diplomacy comes eight weeks after Buhari visited neighboring Niger and Chad. |
3 | All three countries are contributing to the force. |
4 | Hard feelings date back to a 1980s land dispute. |
5 | More recently, Nigeria accused Cameroon of doing little to prevent Boko Haram from using their territory as a refuge. |
6 | Cameroon saw Buhari's failure to visit earlier as a snub, and its president, Paul Biya, didn't to attend his May inauguration. |
7 | "The two countries are intertwined and have no choice but to have a relationship to deal with Boko Haram," said Chris Fomunyoh, an analyst with the Washington-based National Democratic Institute. |
8 | On Monday, Boko Haram killed at least 29 people in two Christian villages in northeast Nigeria, while in Cameroon, suicide bombings claimed 60 lives over the past week. |
9 | Some 20,000 people have died in the 6-year-old uprising. |
10 | "Those are the last kicks of a dying monster," said Cameroon's Defense Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o Tuesday. |
11 | The insurgency has consistently rebounded after major setbacks, however. |
12 | Multinational troops earlier this year forced the extremists out of towns they had held, but now, Nigerian politicians say Boko Haram is again seizing territory. |
13 | Buhari has said an 8,700-strong multinational army will become fully operational next month, delayed for months by lack of funding dependent on a U.N. Security Council resolution. |
14 | Associated Press reporters Edwin Kindzeka Moki in Yaounde, Cameroon and Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria contributed to this report. |