Nigeria's Buhari Marks Independence Day With Troops in Northeast

(Bloomberg) -- Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari visited the northeastern city of Maiduguri on Sunday to meet with troops deployed against Boko Haram Islamist militants.

Buhari helped mark the country’s 57th independence anniversary with the troops, Sani Usman, a spokesman for the army, said by phone from the city.

The Nigerian leader said in a national broadcast earlier Sunday that his government successfully rolled back the advance of the Islamist insurgency, now in its eighth year in Africa’s most populous country with more than 180 million people.

--With assistance from Dulue Mbachu

To contact the reporter on this story: Mustapha Muhammad in Kano at mmuhammad10@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Jurjen van de Pol