Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari pledged $100 million on Thursday to fund a regional force against Boko Haram Islamist militants at a meeting with the presidents of Chad, Niger, Benin, and the defense minister of Cameroon.
Buhari called for international assistance to help sustain funding for the Multinational Joint Task Force, which comprises troops from those countries, with the exception of Benin.
“Our campaign against Boko Haram must be seen within the wider context of the global war against terror,” he said in a speech in the capital, Abuja. “Terrorism has no frontiers and must, because of the great implication for regional and global peace and security, be defeated.”
Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands in northeastern Nigeria and neighboring countries in its 6-year-old campaign to impose its version of Islamic law, or Sharia, on Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria’s population of about 180 million is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.
Borno and Adamawa states in Nigeria have borne the brunt of the violence.
One of Buhari’s first acts after he was sworn in as president of Africa’s biggest economy on May 29 was to visit leaders in neighboring Niger and Chad for talks on regional cooperation against the Islamist militants.
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