AFP, ABUJA: Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday held talks with regional leaders on Boko Haram, with hopes a new fighting force will help crush the Islamists after six years of violence.
Heads of state and government from Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin jet in to Nigeria's capital, Abuja, after two days of preparatory discussions involving military top brass and defence ministers.
The meetings come on the back of Buhari's appeal to world leaders at the G7 summit in Germany last weekend for more help in combating extremism and visits to Chad and Niger.
Buhari, 72, has made ending the militants' reign of terror his top priority and has already moved the military's command centre from Abuja to Maiduguri, in the rebels' northeastern stronghold.
The flurry of activity since his inauguration on May 29 stands in stark contrast to years of apparent inaction in tackling the group by his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.
Political analyst Imad Mesdoua said Buhari, a former military ruler and retired army general, was aware he had to address the issue swiftly during his honeymoon period with the electorate. He has zero time. I really think he has to hit the ground running. He has to get everything in place as fast as possible, Mesdoua, from the Africa Matters consultancy, told AFP from London.
The five-nation Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) was first agreed upon in May last year, a month after Boko Haram shocked the world by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria.
It was supposed to be operational in November 2014 but was dogged by wrangling between Anglophone Nigeria and its Francophone neighbours, whom it has long viewed with suspicion.
Reviving the force was brought to the fore in January, as Boko Haram hit northeast Nigeria almost daily and began to eye territorial gains in border regions of Niger, Chad and Cameroon.