Talks at State House on July 29, 2015 were widely expected to break new ground in the effort to finding a durable solution to the Boko Haram insurgency.

For long, even too long, Nigeria and Cameroon have continued to take a suspicious posture over each other in the management of the Boko Haram insurgency and every single act on the two sides came forthrightly to strengthen these suspicions, especially with what was perceived as a strange apathy on the side of the Jonathan administration in frontally confronting Boko Haram and by which reckoning the villainous sect could have been defeated a long time ago. Little wonder, the first steps of the Buhari administration were watched very closely by the Yaounde authorities with the first outings of the new Nigerian leader to Chad and Niger were seriously considered to confirm the view in Yaounde that Nigeria was not taking Cameroon as an important player in the game to subjugate Boko Haram.

So the first-ever meeting between Presidents Buhari and Biya, by its sheer occurrence, constituted an important ground-breaking event. Now, the two nations are talking. And for the second time at Heads of State level since the summit addressing the Boko Haram issue was held in the French capital, Paris on May 17, 2014. Yesterday, State House grounds took the posture of a huge welcome feast with water works, flower displays all over the place and the Presidential Guards Band dishing out music with a stress on pieces by the Cam-Nigerian musician Nico Mbarga. But the business-like arrival ritual with a simple handshake without too much of ado about niceties already indicated the seriousness of business at hand. No journalists were allowed even on the corridors of the President’s third flow office where the talks between the two leaders took place moments after the arrival of President Buhari at about 2 PM. But every reasonable guess pointed to the fact that Boko Haram was the main issue, especially as this was the first direct meeting between the two Presidents and moreso, because of the degenerating security situation in the Far-North Region of Cameroon, marked by a change in the modus operandi of the decried sect and which has recently introduced the use of suicide bombings, with last week’s three incidents in Maroua being the best example. The composition of the official suites of the two Presidents also spoke eloquently about the contents of their discussions. On the Nigerian side, there were the six Governors of the boundary States with Cameroon: Kashim Shettima (Borno), Jibrilla Bindow (Adamawa), Emmanuel Udom (Akwa Ibom), Samuel Urtom (Benue), Ben Ayade (Cross River), Darius Ishaku (Taraba) as well as Messrs Paul Bulus Z., Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Alhaji Aliyu Ismaila, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Ayodele Oke, Director General in the Presidency and Lawal A. Kazaure, Chief of State Protocol. All these Nigerian Governors had their opposite number on the Cameroonian side as well as the Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali and ranking ministers of the defence, external relations and territorial administration as well as close aides of the President of the Republic. There could have been nothing else, but the fine-tuning of strategies to fight and defeat Boko Haram. Nigerian journalist and a well-introduced source in the Nigerian Presidency, Peter Onwubuariri told Cameroon Tribune that President Buhari had come with very specific proposals to present to his Cameroonian counterpart and highlighted the disposition of the Nigerian leader to end the insurgency. “We’ll soon be talking of giving marching orders to this sect,’ he told CT.

While Presidents Biya and Buhari held their discussions, an adjoining hall hosted a meeting between the Minister of Territorial Administration of Cameroon, flanked by the Governors of the Adamawa, North, North-West, South-West and the Permanent Secretary in the Far-North Governors Office met with the six State Governors from Nigeria during which they exchanged vital information on security challenges and presented the difficulties they experience in the daily management of the crisis engendered by the Boko Haram insurgency. Speaking to Cameroon Tribune after the side event, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, Rene Emmanuel Sadi said the meeting was most useful in that it had enabled the field actors to meet physically and exchange notes.