Cameroonians hail AFCON for bringing infrastructural development, jobs

Cameroonians who are already reaping the benefits of hosting the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations have expressed their joy in seeing the impact being made by newly built infrastructure.

Cameroon was initially billed to host the tournament in 2019. But in November 2018, the Confederation of Africa Football stripped the country of its hosting rights, citing the lack of the required infrastructure for the tournament.

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The country last hosted the AFCON in 1972 and many of the youths never experienced the euphoria until this edition.

According to some locals, hosting the tournament has compelled the government to fix some basic infrastructure such as roads, construction and renovation of stadiums.

They also cited job creation as some of the gains of hosting this year’s AFCON.

A student, Jeremie Cooper, said before now, he could only imagine what it means to host such a big tournament.

“I am 27 years old and this is the first time I am witnessing something like this. I have only read about the last hosting and can’t say how it developed the country. But this one, I have seen so many things which the government had ignored being fixed.

“The road to the stadium here (Japoma Stadium) was very terrible and all of a sudden the government fixed it. Even the road from Yassa that leads to this stadium was so terrible and there used to be traffic, now, it has reduced and they are expanding the road. I hope they won’t abandon the road now that the tournament is about to end,” he said.

A lady, Christine said the construction of the stadium and fixing of roads provided jobs for many unemployed youths.

“Though I didn’t have anything to do with the construction, I know some of my female friends who were employed as volunteers and are getting paid and I have a neighbour who worked on the road construction. And the same applies to many other people as well,” she noted.

A taxi driver in Doula, Zaolu who spoke in French said the transport fare didn’t increase but they made more rounds than normal as they needed to transport more people.

“The fare didn’t increase but we had more people to carry around. Personally, I had the opportunity of being hired by some people and I get paid well,” he said.