Dr Peter Mbile
By Dr. Peter N. Mbile
In few days, October 26, the Constitutional Council of Cameroon will be bound by law to proclaim the official results of the 2025 Presidential Elections, perhaps one of the most defining political moments in our lifetimes.
The air is heavy with speculation, fear, and anticipation.
It feels almost prophetic, as if nature itself is holding its breath.
A line from W. B. Yeats’s poem, long embedded in the memories of those who passed through the _Sheldon Book of Verse_ , rises hauntingly to the surface:
“The wind blew from pole to pole, and even a child would know the devil has business at hand.”
That single line captures perfectly the psychic tension of the present hour.
It evokes a storm, both literal and moral, sweeping across the land, unsettling everything in its path.
The “child” here represents innocence, intuition, and the pure sense that something is wrong, even if words cannot capture it.
In our current context, it is as though even the most apolitical Cameroonian, the market woman, the taxi driver, the young graduate, senses that something larger and darker than politics is afoot.
The “devil’s business” in this metaphor is not supernatural, it is the business of division, deceit, and despair.
It is the business of turning brothers and sisters into adversaries and enemies; of transforming political disagreement into moral hatred.
It thrives in moments of uncertainty, when truth becomes elastic and loyalty becomes a weapon.
It whispers that victory must come at all costs, that compromise is weakness, and that the end justifies any means.
But in the “devil’s business”, there are no winners.
There is only loss, collective, moral, and generational.
This is why WB Yeats’s symbolism speaks so powerfully to the Cameroonian post-election moment.
The devil’s work is never about policy or ideology; it is about seduction, the seductive pull of anger, pride, and vengeance.
It draws people into thinking that justice can be built on destruction, or that peace can be postponed until after revenge.
In that illusion, both the victor and the vanquished lose their souls, and the nation itself bleeds quietly in the middle.
As a people of faith, today being Sunday, we must resist the temptation to yield our spirits to the forces of bitterness.
Whether one’s candidate wins or loses, whether one’s region rejoices or mourns, the deeper victory or defeat is moral, not political.
We cannot let six decades of national existence collapse into six days of collective rage.
Cameroon’s soul, our shared humanity, our capacity for truth, fairness, and mercy, is the true prize at stake.
Let every church bell that rings today remind us that the devil’s business only thrives when good people despair, when they stop believing that reconciliation is possible.
These six days should not be spent trading accusations or counting votes in fear, but in safeguarding the one thing the devil cannot possess unless we hand it to him willingly: the soul of our nation.