For Nigeria, there’s no way to go but up

SIR: The mood in the nation is refreshing like the air in spring. It is budding with hope. The success of the recent general election has ushered in a glimmer of a brighter future. The people have been wasting away for a long time from leadership drought. The vision of embracing the virtues of democracy is yielding the seed of liberation. The nation is breathing happier like a farmer who after going through years of depressive productivity, unexpectedly witnesses rainfall in due season.

The sense of optimism in the country is like a quiet stream cascading the nooks and corners of a parched terrain bringing vegetation to a breed nearing extinction. The land is nourished with the scent of the momentary blossom. The ordinary Nigerian does not ask for much from the government. Some may have been unwilling to be politically swayed in one direction or the other but when the wind of change blew, the momentum sounds like a chorus. Even if it is for shifting the intractable wheel of change in government, the people have succeeded in uplifting their chances.

Nigerians know what is good. This is not to say that this trait is peculiar to them. Only that they have been dragged through the mud for so long, they started living like pigs in a pigsty. To the extent that many have adopted that lifestyle and habited the existence as unchangeable, it is a misnomer. When the sweet breeze blows in the wind, flowers shake in jubilation. The people are capable of change when inspired by a righteous cause.

The expression that nature endowed Nigeria with abundance of good fortune is beginning to sound like a cliché. Take a walk in any direction, you will find in each region enough natural resources to sustain the nation. From groundnut in the North, oil in the South, palm oil in the East, cocoa in the West to numerous other resources amongst, the nation is brimming with amazing wealth.

Nigerians must step into this well of utopia without fear of being drowned. I believe that there is no way to go but up.

• Pius Okaneme, Umuoji, Anambra State.