It would be mischief on the part of this column if we subscribed to the bandwagon of those elitist Nigerians whose stock in trade is the creation of false hope of a better year ahead at the end of every dismal year in the past two decades or so.

This article could have been titled Obama and Media Executioners Vs Farouk and Nigeria and it will still be appropriate. But, the selection of the title was based on the need to come quickly to the conclusion before providing the supporting evidence.

Nigeria is the irritant. An irritant may not accept that it is one. But the tag is supplied by those who look at you, watch what you are doing and smile if you vibrate on the same wavelength as they; or you make them want to throw up by what you do.

Nigerian parents are very busy making money and thinking that that is all it takes to provide a great life for the kids. Many create cocoons of privilege that isolate their children from a larger community of peers, and they live in that bubble of a small, closed society, and become very easy targets, as I am sure the young Mutallab became, of those who give them meaning and tempt them with purpose beyond themselves.

The Yuletide celebrations have just ended, with the usual aftermaths, trailing them. Whether one is a Christian or nonchristian, Christmas is a period of frenetic activity and high expectations, great hopes and disappointments, increase in all manner of vices and road accidents.