Personally, I hate the fact that Nigeria as the giant of Africa is gradually being pushed aside by the world. In fact, it hurts deep down for Obama, that got 1000% support of Nigerians world wide to now ignore our nation.
But to be fair,  I totally understand why Barack Obama has made this decision.
Look at us and look at our country, Nigeria from North to South and from East to West, who on his or her right mind wants to be associated or involved with this country at this point in time?

Our election process or system is a total mess.
Constant electric power supply is impossible.
Medical system is totally defective or may I say in shambles.
100% of our leaders of today and from the past stole heavily from the country.
Our education system is structurally dysfunctional and fails to prepare learners.
419 emails all over the world are still labelled with Nigerian faces.
All current leaders are picked and not elected.
Nigeria as number 5th in the world as oil supplier, yet Nigerian citizens still line up to buy gas at the gas station on a regular.
Just last month it was confirmed that 85% of Nigerian citizens in Nigeria live below poverty level.
Infrastructure all around the country is less than poor.

So, what exactly do you expect Obama to come and discuss with Yaradua?

No i dont have a problem with it at and I applaud him for it, BRAVO OBAMA! The white house has already said they chose Ghana because of its strong and vibrant democracy that can be a model for many other countries on the continent. What is wrong with applauding a black African country for its success Nigeria unfortunately is not a model in any area of politics really except government corruption.

And besides he isnt going to South Africa or Egypt either two countries that have more reason to claim to be Africa's GIANT than Naija and they arent making a big deal of it, even Kenya, Obama's paternal homeland, isnt making a big issue of him going to Ghana.


GET OVER IT !!!

yep, I agree.
I think we should stick to bringing R Kelly, P Diddy, Neyo and JZ to come and entertain our suffer heads from time to time.
I doubt it if Obama will ever visit our "lovely land full of honey" during his current 4 yr term. I guess, this is a true sign for our greedy and foolish leaders to go somewhere cold and die.

@ Topic

Short Answer : No

Less Short Answer:
What benefit would Nigeria be deriving if he visited? International recognition for Nigeria? To what end?
More jobs for the Nigerian masses?
Death to any Nigerian official who is currently syphoning the country's money into his/her own pocket?
More loans to Nigerian government from international bodies because the American president visited/recognized the country? Will the loans see the light of day after the politicians finish lining their pockets with it?

Obama can do nothing for Nigeria. He cannot change the government, cannot end the corruption, cannot feed indefinitely the people living below the poverty level, cannot do nada except shake hands with Yaradua and Co.
If, however, someone possesses some insight into what his visit could do for Nigeria, then please correct me.

So why should anyone care whether he bypasses Nigeria or not?

i dont have a problem with it at all, infact, i would have done same.
A nation that has it all and yet her people are still dying of simple malaria? why would he wanna visit Nigeria?
BTW, Nigeria int no giant of Africa oh, be educated about it, Nigeria has Oil and Money, but we lack all it takes to make nation successful.

I agree with you guys, but it isn't cool for Obama to now ignore our country after all the support we gave him during the election period.
I honestly believe that the fact that things are not being done properly in Nigeria should motivate Obama more to want to come and show his support to at least the poor citizens, who have no voice.

Don't you think?

Depilot:

I agree with you guys, but it isn't cool for Obama to now ignore our country after all the support we gave him during the election period.
I honestly believe that the fact that things are not being done properly in Nigeria should motivate Obama more to want to come and show his support to at least the poor citizens, who have no voice.

Don't you think?

What kinda support did u guys gave him that others never gave him?

So you people are not grateful that Obama didn't come to Nigeria? You're not happy that another set of lobbyists didn't have an opportunity to loot? You're not glad that the Stock Exchange was not shut down for a month so that madam can sew Aso Ebi for all staff of every listed company.

Obama has a right to visit wherever he wants. Some stupid Nigerians just took the whole Obama for president thing too seriously and the man really doesn't know what happened down here.

How many times has our own president here visited Niger Republic despite them being our neighbour.

So a president cannot go and deliver a message or hold an important meeting because Nigerians danced during his victory. So the man should not do his job. So when Nigerian President has a speech to deliver in Canada, he must go to the US. Well that really is what we do, but it doesn't mean others should borrow that stupid tradition of "uncle, I dey go market, I just say make I come hail O!"

You think these are people that don't have plans and schedules? Abeg kill this gist. I have no problem with Obama's Ghana visit O!

why assume he bypassed Nigeria to visit Ghana?

I doubt Naija was even on his list of valuable/useful allies.

Obama's decision to bypass Nigeria was not made by mistake, it was intentionally designed and I totally understand why he has made this decision at this time.
But instead of us prescribing for this gist to be killed, why not try and identify reasons why Nigeria is being neglected and what can be done to re-capture our old fame as a great country? People seem to be accepting our current status and I'm not sure if this is the right approach. This country must not be sold easily, because buying it back might be very tough to do.
The fact that things are currently not right in Nigeria should have motivated Obama more to want to visit this country.

In fact, it has been reported that Obama is currently in Russia finding better ways to forget the past and correct the presence and future; I do not think the political or economic structure in Russia is better than the one in Nigeria. If it's better, it's not much. Therefore, if Obama could manage to visit Russia, I think visiting Nigeria shouldn't be a big deal.

We need Obama to come and show our leaders what a true leader is made of, and I hope he considers coming before the end of his term.

Obama has already visited Egypt so maybe he bypassed Ghana too.

Ain't gat no problem with that at all.

I hear the rumours that OBAMA is afraid of

1. PHNC/NEPA having power outage during his press conferences, and Generator refuses to work automatically because there is no diesel to power it. The man doesn't want to be embarrassed by Republican party mocking him as 'PRINCE OF DARKNESS' from Nigeria.

2. He doesn't want to be In ABUJA when MEND start to bomb the place.

3. This is the most feared of him visting, that your President, YAR A'FAILURE health may just fail, and the guy may die and the whole world will start blaming US President visits for being too gruelsome on a Self denial 'leader', and that they will claim that the CIA is working for AC and ANPP to overthrow a DO NOTHING GOVERNMENT.

4. That OBAMA may stuck on federal roads from the Airport whilst visting lagos with a lot of gully, and may ask his host to pay for the repair of the US cars, which our President may use Health budget to pay for such.

As they say, good riddance to bad rubbish. If you are not a Nigerian, and you are just a bystander or adviser to OBAMA , will you ever give it a second thought in advising a thoughtful man to visit a thoughtless, visonless 'set of leaders'- so that OBAMA can get 'infected' with their foolishness.

nigeria is simply not good enough for an american president to visit.
obama is used to good things of live so coming nigeria where all the bad things of live reign will be too bad.
well done obama.

chidichris:

nigeria is simply not good enough for an american president to visit.
obama is used to good things of live so coming nigeria where all the bad things of live reign will be too bad.
well done obama.

I share your view jare, maybe this will make people sit up and make the nation bearable for people that counts

Obama's bypass of Nigeria is perfectly in order, he was making a statement that Ghana is a reference point for good governance