Omnipresent patrolling and fixed teams of security men discouraged trouble mongers while reassuring celebrating city dwellers during the crossover night.

The sight of a truck carrying several heavily armed soldiers of the Military Headquarters Brigade, passing in front of the Central Post Office close to midnight on December 31, 2014, indicated the tight security arrangements made to ensure that celebrations for the crossover night were hitch-free.

According to the Centre Regional Commander of the Public Highways and Traffic Police, Superintendent Adamou Baba, several patrol teams were deployed throughout the city of Yaounde, especially around major road junctions and streets that hosted multitudes of merry-making inhabitants. “Patrol teams comprised motorcyclists, traffic policemen with jackets and luminous batons as well as armed security men aboard mobile jeeps,” disclosed Superintendent Adamou Baba.

Effectively, groups of three or more policemen could be seen posted at major junctions such as the Camp Sic Messa neighbourhood. More so, joint patrol teams comprising police and gendarmes were also conspicuously present around the Chapelle Nsimeyong junction, keeping watch over celebrating citizens camped in a cluster of bars less than a hundred metres away. A police source also revealed that several unmarked cars driven by security men in uniform or plain clothes were among the vehicles on the streets to forestall any security breach.