Mandate of Greatness & Hope: Voici Yaounde!.

The depth of history aside, the Yaounde, framed within President Paul Biya's current mandate of " Greatness and Hope," in the quest for power in the October 12, 2025 presidential election, pundits are saying, has gone from crawling to be being immobilised, especially when it comes to hygiene and sanitation.

The “City of Seven Hills,” for many, is now “a village of heaps of garbage.”  

Household waste in Yaounde, observers are stating, has beaten everyone hands down, including the highest authority of the land.

Since 2023, people vested with public authority, derived from that of the Head of State, have talked tough, staged ceremonies and toured Yaounde, declaring to end dangerously stinking garbage heaps. Shockingly, this is 2026, and nothing has changed!

Yaounde, the seat of power, has continued to show ugliness of the highest form, through smelling garbage heaps that block major streets. 

Everyone, especially those in authority, have rather been taking delight in praising the Head of State, but going numb at the sight of the tones of household waste that have made roads in the nation’s practically impassable.

Behold national shame in Biya's name

Whenever good things happen in Cameroon, the tradition has been that of always crediting the Head of State, President Paul Biya, for such. 

But with the persistent filthiness of Yaounde, analysts say, it will not be an understatement to also put the blame of what is happening at the President's doorsteps. 

Some critics are stating that if Biya can't ensure the nation's seat of power is clean, it is obvious that having other basic services that meet standards remain a pipe dream.

The filth of Yaounde has been projected as a national show of shame, ineptitude, inertia, lack of innovation and carelessness. The sight of major streets in Yaounde these days are the uncountable mounting heaps of trash. For stretches that boast of a ridge, one side of the road is blocked for hundreds of meters.

Yaounde is today a city convulsing  and quivering, under the dense ordour of household waste that continue to ferment on major streets, and releasing scents that irritate the entire system of denizens who inhale such.

Greatness & Hope on paper, filthiness in reality 

On campaign manifestos, the Head of State and millions of his supporters talked passionately about being ready to build a never-seen Cameroon. 

Critics had rubbished such promises but those working with Biya insisted that Greatness and Hope were in the horizon. Yet, eight months and still counting since Biya won the October 12, 2025 poll, according to the Constitutional Council, analysts are stating that the basic index of Hope and Greatness, which is cleanliness, has largely eluded Yaounde.

Those satirising the CPDM, say if Yaounde can’t have it right in managing household waste, no part of the nation can boast of having such.

Some are now reviewing that Cameroon is largely built and constructed through political rhetoric, with its capital, Yaounde, buried in filth and everyone unconcerned about it.

Putting the dense piles of rubbish, which in some cases are measuring the height of buildings, side by side political promises of the last election, critics are unbending that the Greatness and Hope of the city is on paper, whereas its reality is grubbiness and pong. 

Snapshots of capital reeling in dirtiness 

To match the picture of what Yaounde is, with its vintage and perennially-ubiquitous garbage mountains blocking circulation, several neigbourhoods stand out. 

This, is albeit the understanding that Yaounde III and Yaounde VI top the dirtiness chart.

The stretch, Tam-Tam to Rond Point Express, has a permanent heap that spans the length, width and depth of a sea.  Hundreds of metres away, Monte Maison Blanch is the site of another mountain of heap that has fermented and is releasing water permanently. 

The story of the mountains of unlearned garbage are also unsightly visible at Biyem Assi Lac, Efoulan Lac,  Rail  Obobogo, Entre Terre Rouge Damas, Depot des Bois Damas, Carrefour Damas, Carrefour Nsam, Odza Messamen Ndongo, Victtor Hugo Nsimenyong, Obili, Melen, Cradat and more.

Even most informed Cameroonian helpless?

A minister is on record as repeatedly stating that President Biya is the most informed Cameroonian. But pundits say, going by such a reading, the President too could be in a position of defeat.  Since 2023, several members of government have come out, claiming that Biya sent them to address the situation.

The Prime Minister, Head of Government, Dr Chief Joseph Dion Ngute, has staged two crisis meetings on waste disposal in Yaounde. 

The Minister of Territorial Administration, MINAT, Paul Atanga Nji, under whose command administrative authorities are placed, also entered the battle to clear waste, sometimes last year. 

There is also the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Celestine Ketcha Courtes, who even hosted a national forum on waste management in Yaounde; in addition to also staging a special campaign, which she claimed was ordered by President Biya.

The heaps of rotten and reeking garbage loads blocking roads in August 2026 and potentially beyond all over Yaounde, observers say, tells of how authorities have failed to address a major social problem.

When Yaounde enforces filth on entire nation

For some, the persistent lots of dirt all over Yaounde, is not just a city-specific problem but a prophecy of what Cameroon is and will be. 

Given that it hosts the nation’s most politically powerful men, yet brazenly dirty, many Yaounde residents are unanimous that the capital city is simply teaching the rest of the nation how not to be clean.

Yaounde, they are stating, has imposed a norm that has from time to time, taken hold of the nation’s major towns and city. When incidents of abandon household heaps surface elsewhere in Cameroon, Yaounde, which continues to witness such, year in and year out, remains constant in demonstrating what for some is a capacity of what it means to fail an entire generation.

Filth crowns failure in other sectors?

The filthiness of Yaounde is also being pictured within the broader image of the quality of basic social services in Cameroon. 

The heaps of garbage that Yaounde is now synonymous to, others are saying, is just a symbol of how standards have fallen in Cameroon, when it comes to development.

Yaounde, in 2026, they are stating, can’t be sure of steady power supply for one week. It is also known for dry taps, broken roads, anarchical construction, poor healthcare services and disrespect, for even the very instructions that are supposed to guide national development. 

Yaounde, in the view of many, is the city where laws citizens are being forced to respect elsewhere are treated with levity.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3889 of Tuesday August 25, 2026