Buhari's Visit: Biya calls for a fortified union

The head of state, Paul Biya, intends to permanently bury the hatred caused by a diplomatic war between his country and neighboring Nigeria.

The cold diplomatic relations between the two countries is not a secret since the ascension of Paul Biya as president and a failed coup on April 6, 1984 against his person.

President Paul Biya came to power in 1983, the year in which Muhammadu Buhari was carrying out a coup in Nigeria. The following year, President Paul Biya escaped an attempted coup d ' état in which some of the coup leaders were henchmen of Muhammadu Buhari.

The purge exercised against these persons and certain personalities from the North of Cameroon displeased the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari.

Relations between the two men were also bad. Thirty years have passed after the incident. But Cameroon and Nigeria always had a delicate relationship; a historical dispute, powered by several border disputes.

In Yaoundé, we had become accustomed to the fact that for fifteen years a president elected in Nigeria reserves his first foreign visit to Cameroon.

Although the former dictator, Buhari, and a Democrat, committed a diplomatic blunder or a challenge avoiding to visit Cameroon while moving to Niamey and N'Djamena, Paul Biya reaffirmed yesterday his desire to see the neighbouring brothers come together to face their common enemy and economic and diplomatic relations between the two nations.

In his speech at the dinner organized by the Nigerian president at the Unity Palace yesterday, Paul Biya reiterated this commitment.

"Beyond many informal transactions between our peoples, we have created different structures of cooperation. I believe that we could now develop more cross-border projects of common interest to improve the living conditions of our respective populations and to make our area a space of mutual prosperity," he said.

He invited Mr. Buhari to "a new dynamic" in the economic relationship between the two countries for more solidarity and complementarity.

"We need to promote a unlimited fluidity in our dealings and more joint ventures between our economic operators," he wished.

It should be noted that the two countries have been fighting against the Islamic sect of Aboubacar Shekau for nearly a decade.