It’s almost a year since the event of Christmas day last year which changed the way airline security works in this country. We used to just take off our shoes at airports. (Of course before then in the seventies, people didn’t even care much about airline security). Now we get to choose between an invasive body scanner or a more invasive body pat-down. Or both.

Talking to a friend about the new intrusive security procedures at airports all around the United States today brought one grim reality to my attention: this would not have been the case had it not been for that Nigerian guy! Maybe it eventually would have in a different way or form, but being one to blame – however remotely – weighs upon me with a sense of disgust. Everybody blames the TSA for being reactive rather than being proactive in their security concerns. I blame them too, then again quickly realize that it is never their fault that a spoilt and brainwashed young from a third world country would strap explosives to his “junk” and walk into a plane. Now the genie is out of the bottle, and it won’t go back in. Innocent passengers from everywhere are forced to pay the price.

The sad fact, again – of course, is that the people planning the next attack would only think of an even more ingenious way to bypass security, and thus send the country into one more hole of reactive security damage control that limits individual freedom, erodes privacy and attacks dignity and human rights. Let’s hope it never happens. For now I only feel extremely sorry for those who have to endure pawing hands all over them because of the jackassery of someone who once walked the same streets in Nigeria as me.