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.

The Evan Enwerem Senate is remembered for being a rubber stamp of the executive. The Chuba Okadigbo Senate is hailed for among others, its sound articulation of legislative procedures, flamboyant ventilation of parliamentary cadence, but also, for the contract scandal that eclipsed it.

Nigerians are furious that America has given us a name which does not belong to us. According to them, Nigeria is classified amongst countries that sponsor terrorism. This is outrageous!!! Really, who is a terrorist? If a man or a nation throws a bomb on a community killing dozens of people for whatever reason, is that person or nation a terrorist?