Urban Orderliness: Shun Excesses!

Efforts to combat urban disorder in Cameroon are arguably broad-based with different City and Municipal Councils employing diverse strategies to keep the ill under check depending on how it manifests. Without being exhaustive, the disorder ranges from markets trespassing on roads, disrespect for the Highway Code, unsuitable waste disposal, noise pollution and littering. Be it in Yaounde or Douala and sometimes in other towns across the country, it is an everyday practice to see people exhibiting their goods on the pavements reserved for pedestrians or even the motorway resulting in unnecessary traffic jams.
The men and women hired to ensure urban orderliness are as diverse as the different facets of the disorder and how well they go about their job calls for serious debate. Visibly, there is the good, the bad and even the ugly in what they do. Recent reports in Cameroon’s economic capital; Douala, on skirmishes between municipal agents and road users are expressive of growing misapprehensions which should be meticulously looked into so as to avert the worse. 
Reports of municipal agents going beyond the scope of their competence to oblige road users to present identification papers, car documents and others might be as a results of two problems – ignorance or overzealousness, all of which are susceptible to creating social tension among people who are called to live and work together. This can also sternly dampen the mission of the council agents which from their roadmaps rather looks hope-raising.
The latest case in Douala on April 7, 2022 when circulation was perturbed at different points within the city as municipal agents went on the road checking documents even those that were not within their competence is just a minor picture of what other cities face on daily basis. That the fanatical council agents in Douala faced stiff resistance from commercial motorbike riders, a situation which led to free-for-all fight obliging the forces of law and order to step in to restore tranquility, shows how urban orderliness agents can turn rather good moves to appear as bad once they go off track. Some of them are seen to be substituting themselves to forces of law and order and even acting beyond the powers of the latter. If not, how can one explain the sheer arrogance of some of these men who defy all odds to cause confusion, regardless of what their actions leave on the population as damages? 
It is known to most, if not all, that the circulation of motorbikes is proscribed in certain areas in the cities.  In Yaounde for instance, the reasons advanced for outlawing motorbikes from certain areas are that they are at the origin of traffic on the main roads due to their unlawful parking, cause accidents within the city centres and in most cases perpetuate assaults of all sorts. Seizing handbags and or derailing with passengers and assaulting them at gunpoint are increasingly decried.  In Douala, the circulation of motorbikes in the Bonapriso and Bonanjo districts during late hours was banned, for the umpteenth time, some years back.  In the North West Region, the circulation of motorbikes was prohibited in Boyo, Bui, Menchum, Mezam, Momo and Ngoketunjia Divisions from 6 pm to 5.30 am daily. This was against a backdrop of allegations that the bike riders in the North West Region were conniving with separatist fighters to carry out atrocities. Be it in Yaounde, Douala or Bamenda, the reasons advanced by local authorities for outlawing the movement of bikes in some areas are logical. For, they are aimed at instilling peace and serenity highly sought for by all peace-loving citizens.
What however confuses many is the manner in which some municipal agents go about reinforcing the order. It is almost normal in Yaounde that municipal agents waylay motorbike riders in some areas to seize their bikes and engage in negotiations. Come and see them hiding only to fall on a motorbike even in the middle of the road once it approaches. Inhabitants of Odza, Mvog-Atangana Mbala, Nsam etc. are almost daily witnesses of how the so-called municipal agents fight with bike riders, sometimes obstructing traffic. Accidents are commonplace here and the brutality with which they go about the seizures sometimes flares tempers from passersby. How much does a rider pay to retrieve the bike and where does the money go to can be a topic for another day. Visibly, the approach used by the council agents to implement good decisions needs review. Taking motorbikes off the road is a laudable move but shouldn’t be transformed into a business venture for municipal agents or serve as a source of zigzag relationship between the population and the agents. There are po...