The story is virtually like a sequential chorus; Cameroonian civil servants travelling abroad always come back to question the developmental choices taken by our leaders.

On these trips in other countries, they are able to see wide streets, huge monuments, easily-flowing traffic, organized housing patterns and the like. Once back home, the public authorities who initiate these missions expect that officials will be affected by these discoveries and new experiences in taking informed decisions.

But all too often, all comes down to naught! What is happening in Yaounde in the past few weeks is very much an illustration of our refusal to change or, at least, to meet the exigencies of any changing society. There are lots and lots of face-lifting developmental projects lying unattended to in drawing boards simply because of the refusal of local people to accept the sacrifice which, sometimes, simply requires that a flower hedge be moved a meter away in order to ensure that a major boulevard have its way.

A few weeks ago, the public authorities might have thought that they were responding in a responsible manner, to the numerous requests to clear the Mvog-Atangana Mballa neighbourhood which, it must be said, has been an eye sore, especially for new visitors coming into Yaounde and who, very often include high-profile personalities such as Heads of State! If the same State authorities accepted leaving the town of Yaounde almost as it was in order to satisfy the desires of a certain population at that time, tens of years afterwards that cannot be accepted even if simply for the changing times which everyone must try to subscribe to.

Visitors to Yaounde and not even the most demanding ones, would like to see the city centre from where they can do some shopping or go to a shopping mall in the outskirts; they would also like to go for a walk in a city park, go for some form of entertainment to the city cultural centre or simply visit the city museum. It takes urban people to promote living in an urbanized area. But when people supposedly living in an urban milieu refuse some of the most basic accoutrements of an urban setting such as organized streets, good lighting and clean sidewalks, then there is obviously some very serious cause for concern!

We must deplore, in the most virulent terms, the action by a group of people in the Mvog-Atangana-Mballa neighbourhood in Yaounde who are resisting a government attempt to widen the streets in their neighbourhood and, consequently, ease the flow of traffic. Several government projects are suffering from the same attitude around the country where locals would want everything of their so-called rights, be paid before projects, which often very positively impact on the lives of thousands of people, are started. And because of that, Cameroon continues to lag behind in the various human development indices, thereby greatly compromising the determination to become an emerging economy by 2035.