₦airaland Forum

texazzpete:
Such arrogance on this forum! See people complaining about the expected influx of 1995 era Camry and Honda vehicles.
Well, NEWSFLASH! Not everyone can afford to buy SUVs and 2001 Honda Accords. Teachers, Market women et al also have the right to buy cars, and the influx of affordable vehicles will be a big WIN for them.

No, they do not. Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. Will these same market women and teachers contribute money to ameliorate the negative environmental impact of their crap cars? Or contribute money for the excess wear and tear on the roads? Roads and the environment are not free. Everything has a price. Why should someone else be paying the price for them to enjoy?

If you cannot afford to buy a 10 year old car, then maybe you shouldn't be driving.

In any case, you are allowed to buy 10+ year old cars. But you should buy them from existing people within Nigeria, not importing it from outside the country.

We want to reduce the number of low-quality cars in the country, not increase it.

Prime KG > Prime Malone.

How many times did Malone get knocked out of the playoffs while playing with John frikkin STOCKTON?

If you give KG Stockton as his PG from 1998-2008, he goes DEEP into the playoffs every year. Not getting knocked out by random scrub teams, like Malone did.

How can you have two top 25 players of all time, Hall of Famers and not have one ring to show for it?

One HoFer in KG and two borderline HoFers in Pierce and Allen won a ring right away, and stand a good chance of winning again this year. How can two HoFs like Malone and Stockton play together for 15+ years and have ZERO rings? Both of them are overrated!

I have no problem supporting Jonathan or any other candidate. But what will be in it for us? Sentiment is not enough.

Anyone suggesting Yoruba should vote for Jonathan "just because" or because of "Hausa this-that" is fooling themselves. Nothing valuable comes for free. If he believes that he needs SW votes to come to power, then there will be a price to pay. I'm not interested in giving away my vote without using it to maximize our interests.

Buhari, Jonathan, Atiku, all the same to me. Whoever offers the best deal wins my support.

With that said, I certainly find Jonathan the most appealing on a personal level out of the above three guys. But again, sentiment cannot be what I use to decide who to support.

This is a good policy. 30% corporate income tax makes no sense for a country trying to attract business.

Of course, you'll need to study how this affects gov't revenue and how to make up for any losses. But that shouldn't be too big a deal, since corporate income tax as a fraction of gov't revenue is probably small.

I like the 48 hour clearing thing too.

I also like agricultural hub. If we bring in modern farming techniques and financial backing, this is a field we can dominate in Africa. There is no reason for naija not to become the bread basket of Africa.

All of these things are good ideas. But good ideas are easy to come up with; bringing them to reality is harder.

^--- We have to start from somewhere. We can make clothes in Nigeria. We can make shoes. We can make toothpicks. I think we can make furniture too.

If the prices are not currently competitive enough, we should study and figure how to make it so. Maybe there is some process that is being used overseas that we've not yet taken advantage of. Maybe the companies here need low-interest loans. Whatever it is, let's figure it out. But we cannot afford to just give up entirely. Support business in Nigeria, do not destroy it.

For certain things we cannot make competitively like cars, fine, import them (again, with a 10 year restriction so low-quality junk cars are not imported.) But in the long-term, even those things like cars eventually must be made in Nigeria. We cannot be a nation of importers.

monkeyleg:
@DapoBear,

Not true most refurbished laptops are not necessarily done by the manufacturer, infact many electornics shops offer the service.

Indeed. And if it is a good computer shop, they will use good parts. If a bad one, they'll use crap parts. You have to be very careful which type of shop you go to if you want to get value for your money.

Without this ban, Nigerians will import machines with crap parts and pass them off as good ones.

It is the same argument as saying why do we let used cars into the country, after all lots of used cars arrive with nice exterior and terrible engines. It is all about quality control. Things like this must be made to go through rigorous quality tests before they are allowed in and all must have a certificate from the exporting country to verify that they are fit for purpose.

Certificates like this can be faked, unfortunately. Or useless. Like, I can buy a certified Dell used machine, take out the high quality HD, memory and replace it with crap parts. Then sell the quality stuff here, and the crap Dell in naija. How would you suggest preventing this from happening?

mekaboy:
[b] THE BANNING OF THOSE STUFFS WAS NEVER INTENDED TO HELP THOSE THAT PRODUCE LOCALLY, BEACUASE THERE IS NOT ELECTRICITY TO ENABLE PRODUCTION THAT WILL BE ENOUGH FOR THE WHOLE COUNTRY

IT WAS JUST A MOVE TO BY OBJ TO SUPRESS THE IGBOS , THAT IS WHY HE NEVER WANTED THE GOODS TO BE IMPORTED INTO THE EAST VIA RIVER NIGER, TILL YARADUA CAME IN.

Abeg, go form Biafra then and allow all the imports into that land! A country that imports EVERYTHING has no chance of surviving. And we aren't even a rich country like the US which imports a lot, we are a 3rd world country which imports everything. Do you not see how this is a recipe for disaster?

@jp phillips: With that approach, then we'll never produce anything in this country. Should we just give up and say that the only thing of value we will produce is oil?

Protect certain businesses, give them a chance to catch up. Agriculture for example is something we can be competitive in. Things which don't require heavy electricity/industry (e.g., toothpicks, certain other items), let's grow our indigenous business for that.

We cannot be a nation that produces absolutely nothing, except oil. We must grow other industries, even if we must resort of banning the import of items.

Someone who has influence with seun should message him and get him to set this up ASAP!

monkeyleg:
Crazy, even the UK sells reconditioned laptops and phones. What we need ot better quality control not an outright ban. Who is devicing all these poorly thought through policies.

With laptops, how do you maintain quality control? How do you know that someone doesn't fill a nice exterior with crap parts? There is no equivalent of Dell you can buy refurbished laptops from in naija and thus guarantee quality, right?

I don't mind a ban like this. If you want a used laptop, buy one of the old ones currently in Nigeria.

stranger:
There is the court of public opinion
Nigeria is different from America

Fine, if you want to say court of public opinion, I'm OK with that.

American court system is easy to manipulate as long as you have a good lawyer and solid CC.

No, it is not. Not with drug related crimes! Not with most crimes. They want to extract every pound of flesh possible from you. That OJ Simpson got lucky doesn't mean you will. Tinubu is some random Yoruba guy, not a famous loved individual like OJ Simpson was.

Bola Tinubu is an ex-convict, a fact, which makes him neither fit nor proper to govern a state.

Na lie! He was INDICTED, but he was never CONVICTED! There is a crucial, crucial difference between the two. If you are indicted but come out clean, then you are clean. A conviction is different from being indicted.

Guys, an indictment means you are being accused of a crime. A conviction means that a jury deemed you guilty of that crime. Being accused is NOT the same as being deemed guilty. In America, you are innocent until PROVEN guilty. Tinubu never even went to court, so no one can call him guilty.

Let me link you to a story I read. Dunno if you guys remember Tom DeLay? He was the House Republic majority leader back in the day in the early 2000s. He was forced to step down from office due to money laundering charges.

The trial has been going on for a while now, but DeLay (unlike Tinubu) was not able to make a deal, and was recently CONVICTED:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/us/politics/25delay.html?_r=1&src=me

Here is an excerpt:

AUSTIN, Tex. — Tom DeLay, one of the most powerful and divisive Republican lawmakers ever to come out of Texas, was convicted Wednesday of money-laundering charges in a state trial, five years after his indictment here forced him to resign as majority leader in the House of Representatives.

After 19 hours of deliberation, a jury of six men and six women decided that Mr. DeLay was guilty of conspiring with two associates in 2002 to circumvent a state law against corporate contributions to political campaigns. He was convicted of one charge of money laundering and one charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

As the verdict was read, Mr. DeLay, 63, sat stone-faced at the defense table. Then he rose, turned, smiled and hugged his wife and then his weeping daughter in the first row of spectators. He faces between 5 and 99 years in prison, though the judge may choose probation.

Notice that while both Tinubu and he were indicted for crimes, only one of them was convicted. Only one of them is very likely to spend a lot of his next few years in jail.

And this was one of the most powerful men in all of America, at a time. So you all want me to somehow believe that Tinubu managed to escape justice, when even Tom DeLay was not able to. Again, Tinubu needs to give some his Yoruba juju to Tom DeLay too, so he can get out of jail.

Let no one here EVER call Tinubu a drug lord again. He, unlike Tom DeLay was not convicted of any crimes. He went through the legal system, came to a deal where he gave up some money, but was not convicted of anything and was not jailed.

No more of this he-say she-say Kobojunkie sort of stuff.

Now, if Tinubu is a ritualist in Nigeria, committed murder there, etc, I can believe that. Nigeria is a land where you can get away with almost anything if you are powerful enough. But America is not. Not even juju will save you from justice.

No. Think about it. It is impossible to be convicted without even going to court, lol. He settled out of court, made a deal with the DA that involved him giving up the $460K.

These mumu Nigerian journalists do not know how to reason. How is it possible for a man to be convicted without going to court? As if he went to court and were convicted, they would only take away the money! How would the world be if you could commit financial crimes and the only penalty would be that you lose the money you stole?   That would be quite a huge deterrent to potential money launderers, eh?  

Anyway, if you go to court for a case like this and lose (i.e., get convicted), you'll almost certainly face siginificant jail time.

Tinubu didn't even go to court, he made a deal with the DA, gave up the $460K and probably also agreed to do some other things in his deal. By doing this, he completely avoided being convicted.

This is good. I'd rather us import computer parts into Nigeria at wholesale prices from Asia and assemble them into computers ourselves, rather than buying used computers.

This way we are least adding value to the raw pieces in our country.

seyibrown:
@DapoBear

Why does someone who has 'citizen' kids choose to remain an 'ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT' in the country when he can LEGALLY get his stay regularised? Why does he choose to continue to 'BREAK THE LAW' when he can file the relevant application to make his stay legal? That anyone has 200 'citizen' kids does not automatically turn their 'illegal status' into a legal one. There is due process to follow to change his status! It's about time they start 'fining' illegal immigrants for all the costs of 'finding and prosecuting' them!

I'm not defending idiocity, seyibrown. I'm just saying that there is a human factor. It is very easy for us to sit here and condemn, much harder to have sympathy for someone else's position and situation. I'm not saying that we should excuse foolishness, let's just at least try to sympathize with it.

A lot of the problem here is that you guys think that America is like Nigeria. If you commit a crime here and are captured, there is no escape. It isn't like Nigeria where you can do whatever you like and escape justice indefinitely. Here, they will catch you sooner or later.

This is why it is mindboggling to me that some of you claim that Tinubu is/was some sort of powerful drug lord, yet able to be coming and going to the US. If he is who you say he is, and did what you guys say he did in the US, he will be jailed.

There is no escape. You cannot bribe or pay someone off to let you go free, like in Nigeria. Tinubu cannot bribe the district attorney. He cannot put money in the hands of the customs official to let him in. They will pack him off to jail, if he is guilty of what you claim.

The facts are that Tinubu was accused by the DA of holding drug money. They didn't accuse him of being a drug dealer or directly involved in drug trafficking. Again, if the DA had a stronger case against him, they will extract EVERY pound of flesh they can. DAs and the authorities in the US are not nice and kindly grandfather figures. They will build the STRONGEST case against you they possibly can. If 1 KG of cocaine is a felony but anything less is a misdemeanor, and you were found with 1.000001 KG, they will charge you with a felony.

The authorities charged Tinubu with the strongest case they were able to. He settled, gave up the $460K, and moved on. Now, if evidence later comes out that he did something worse, then if they catch him they'll lock him up. But somehow, given that it is now 17 years after the events, I doubt any sort of evidence like this will ever come up. In part because of the effects of time, but in part because Tinubu very likely did things in such a way that it will be very, very hard to ever pin him down with concrete crimes. Say what you will about the man, but he is not a mumu. Very likely the worst thing he did was launder money. It is very unlikely that he was foolish enough to directly deal drugs himself. He would have found some dummy do it instead, so that his hands are not directly tainted.

stranger:
BRB with the article from SR
It seems you really do not know this Tinubu

He is such an enigma, I guess!

http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/nvnews/5904/1/tinubu-lied-us-customs-and-immigration-official.html
http://www.compassnewspaper.com/NG/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12157:pointblank-tinubu-lied--us-customs-and-immigration-officials&Itemid=7966

Will be right back, stay stunned!

He is probably on their watchlist for the indictment earlier, yes. And they might quiz him. But this is very different from being arrested. Immigration will stop and quiz people for lots of reasons. If you are from India, Pakistan, and certain countries or just look weird, you'll be stopped and questioned. This doesn't mean you were arrested.

Here is the full quote:

Although, the earlier version of Bola Tinubu’s ordeal, scooped by Nigeria’s Nigerian Compass newspaper alleged that the “awkward” predicament took place at the J.F. Kennedy Airport in New York, fresh details unearthed by Pointblanknews.com indicate that he was actually stopped and questioned at the Washington Dulles International Airport, DC for three hours by officials of the United States Customs and Immigration Services, USCIS.
According to a USCIS source, “I cannot give you all the details but we had interrogated him on some issues we have on file against him, he is person of interest because of his controversial network of indicted past and present friends as well as a questionable lifestyle as a Politically Exposed Person.”
Asked what the issues were and for how long he was interrogated, the USCIS official said, “You cannot expect me to give you a break down of all that. I can only tell you that he had some drug related issues in Chicago and we just had a little routine questioning for about three hours. It is pretty routine to check up on persons with past drug history entering the US.”

Perhaps I am being naive, but I somehow doubt Customs is going to provide either of those quotes to a newspaper. Pardon my skepticism, I guess.

In short, whatever happened with Tinubu happened in 1993, 17 years ago. In between that time, he settled. If the police find new information that suggests that Tinubu was guilty of something more serious, it won't even be a Nigerian newspaper reporting it. They'll just catch him, lock him up, and we will see him on CNN or Fox News.

There won't be any questioning, they'll just pack him off to jail.

Regarding diplomatic immunity, how did this help Manuel Noriega? He was the leader of Panama sef. That should be strong diplomatic immunity, right?

But what happened? The US INVADED Panama, captured Noriega, brought him to Florida, sent him to trial, and LOCKED HIM UP, sentencing him for 20+ years, iirc.

If they can do this to Manuel Noriega, the leader of an entire foreign country, how on earth was Tinubu able to escape?

You guys are jokers if you really think a wanted drug lord is only going to be held and questioned by the US gov't, diplomatic immunity or no.

stranger:
Kobo can be a pain in the you-know-what sometimes
However, she is right on the Tinubu issue
I guess, she must have lived in Lagos, like me
She is spot on
Tinubu cannot enter the US freely like you and I. However, he was in DC for Obama inauguration. And according to SR. he was arrested and questioned for three hours, despite his atempt to disguise his identity. My suspicion is that Tinubu has some sort of diplomatic passport, making it illigal to be arrested on a foreign soil, and since he committed those crimes long timeago, and he is presently not a threat to America, they might be willing to allow him in under some strict guildlines. I do know that he can't come in as a private citizen though. As a government official, may be.

Again, Tinubu is not well liked both in Nigeria and overseas.

Why do they keep letting him go? Provide evidence of him being arrested in DC and questioned for 3 hours. Which diplomatic passport can he have, while he is NOT in public office?

You guys are not making sense. If you are a WANTED FELON, if the US gov't catches you, you are NEVER escaping. How on earth is Tinubu powerful enough to constantly be getting out of these things? They only QUESTIONED him? Which questions can they be asking after 15+ years? If they have a case against him and they catch him, they are LOCKING HIM UP. Zero questions asked.

Guys, the US is not a place like Nigeria where you can commit crimes and be going to and fro. If they want you and they CATCH you, you are NEVER going to be free. You'll be locked up in jail forever.

Someone explain to me why this applies to everyone on the face of the earth, high or low, except Tinubu. Is Tinubu using some strong juju that prevents him from being imprisoned? He had better give this strong juju to some of the powerful men here in the USA, who have NOT been able to escape their crimes and are currently in prison. How is Tinubu stronger than they are, despite being some random Yoruba man from Nigeria?

Osama Bin Laden sef must being borrowing juju from Tinubu! Why didn't Tinubu give his powerful medicine to Saddam Hussein? Or these Mexican drug lords in South Texas who when they get caught by the US government, rot in jail for the rest of their lives?

Post above by @olafolarin nails most of it. Tinubu appears to have laundered narcotics money, but this doesn't mean he was a drug dealer/drug lord himself.

There is a distinction between the two. Drug dealers generally don't open bank accounts themselves or try to launder their drug money clean themselves. Instead they find someone else to do it.

If the DA had been able to form a case against Tinubu for felony DRUG TRAFFICKING, then he wouldn't have been able to come to any deals. He'd probably be rotting in prison to this day. It is almost impossible in this country to come to any sort of arrangement that will keep you out of prison if you are involved in felony drug trafficking.

Worst thing you can say about Tinubu is that he was somehow involved in laundering money, and in fact drug money. However, even the DA wasn't able to build a case against him strong enough to lock him up (otherwise they would have taken it to court and not given him the choice of just forfeiting the money!)

The fact that he was forced to give up that $460K in a deal, was not jailed, and still travels back and forth to the US should be enough to tell you that he was not drug lord, as many here accuse him of being. Drug lords do not get visas from Nigeria to be travelling to America, much less giving lectures there.

Now, with all of the above said, does this mean that Tinubu is CLEAN? Almost certainly not. He is very likely a crooked man. At the very least, we can suspect he laundered drug money for his underworld friends, and may have done worse. But may is not the same as did. Innocent until proven guilty is the law of the land, at least here in the US.

Let no one call Tinubu a drug dealer again, unless they can provide hard evidence of it. And if you FIND that hard evidence, don't just bring it here. Call up the DA in the US and have them lock him up! If you have a picture or photo of Tinubu dealing drugs, not only post it here, send it to the district attorney so they can lock him up next time he visits the US! Somehow I doubt that anyone can produce this hard evidence.

Anyway, no more he-say she-say slander stuff that the Kobojunkie's of the world do.

Kobojunkie:
Again, stop boring people with your lectures. Go do some research on the issue to at least catch up!

I have yet to say anything of him hiding or whatever it is you have jumped to . . . simply made it clear he was indicted of crimes here and have yet to return to his case. As of 2009, the DOJ reported it was still investigating the man. It is now all he-say-she-say because you refuse to do your research? I am not sure why you continue to comment on an issue you refuse to even get yourself better acquainted with. What do you hope to accomplish with that?

Out of curiosity, how many times did you edit the above post? It is very poor form to edit a post after someone directly debunked you. OK, going forward I know that I'll need to quote you from now on before I respond to you.

manny4life:
This is ridiculous, why would the so-called government opens it borders to allow such? How does Nigeria intend on offsetting trade deficits? Do they know that in the long run that would affect unemployment rate and GDP?

I don't know whether to cry or to laugh. Or whether to take money and import used cars too, as Abagworo is doing

Just very sad to see policies that will ruin the country be enacted.

Well, others here can read and see what is what. You insinuated that the man is hiding from the US due to crimes he committed:

Kobojunkie:
Actually, Tinubu was indicted in Chicago – part of the reason why he fled back to Nigeria and has yet to be back. I am not sure why you need the CIA to probe him when he/ among many of the local champions you folks have down there in Nigeria, have cases keeping them from showing up here in the States.

And I demonstrated that this is very likely false, that he was in the US on a specific date and time, namely, August 29th, 2009 (again, under the reasonable assumption that the event actually occurred, he actually showed up there, etc.) So who are you trying to fool, really?

And then you have the arrogance to accuse others of making conjectures! Please, get that garbage out of here. We don't need any of this he-say she-say stuff that you seem to be fond of. Facts only, please.

Kobojunkie:
Honestly, you bore me with your silly conjectures, especially when it is all too obvious you have little knowledge of what you are going on and on about there.

Just in case it is not clear, most of us here are not here for your entertainment. If bored, go find something else to do! No skin off my back.

What on earth are you talking about? Assuming that he was physically there, then nobody can bandy about these silly statements like he is physically barred from entering the US, as you did.

I'm not saying he is a saint. But you cannot add more sins to even the worst sinner. If he can come and go from the US freely, then you cannot claim that he is hiding and insinuate he is a convicted runaway felon, as you did.

Let's stick to the facts and not reduce this to drama and he-say she-say.

@Kobojunkie: Found it! I was afraid I was going to have to retract my statement.

Anyway, take a look at this post:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ekitikete_of_Washington_Metropolitan/message/559

There is a word document which you can download, which describes the event:

Program of Event
Symposium: 10:00am-2:00pm
All Night party/Award Night start at 9:00pm
On Saturday August 29th, 2009  at Lighthouse Convention center
326 Tryon Road, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27603

and the following guests of honor:

Distinguished Guest of Honor
Most Reverend Felix Ajakaiye
                                              Catholic Bishop of Ekiti Diocese
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Former Governor of Lagos State
and
Hon. Tunji Odeyemi
Speaker Ekiti State Assembly

Like I said, who knows, maybe Tinubu snuck into the US with some sort of fake identification. But with biometrics, fingerprinting and all of the things they use these days, I don't think it would be very easy for him to enter the country if he were truly an escaped felon. Certainly he won't be able to give talks in North Carolina, and announce it publicly!

Anyway, I'm not saying that Tinubu is by any means clean either. Laundering money is clearly a serious crime. But being indicted for a crime is very different from being convicted for it. He probably reached some sort of deal where he gave up all the money he was laundering to avoid any charges. As I said earlier, this to me seems not nearly as bad as Atiku bribing a whole US Congressman! Imagine, thousands of dollars in the congressman's freezer!

If you guys want to say that Tinubu's crimes commited in the US make him ineligible for office in Nigeria, then you have to apply the same standard universally and bar Atiku and all of the others. Do you guys realize how serious it is to bribe a whole Congressman?! Yet nobody is batting an eyelash.

Kobojunkie:
When you are sure, let me know !

Yep, searching now. Didn't find anything in my inbox, now trying to find the yahoo groups mailing list which I saw it on. . .

Kobojunkie:
Actually, Tinubu was indicted in Chicago – part of the reason why he fled back to Nigeria and has yet to be back.

I'm not sure this is true. There was some sort of AC affiliated lecture/conference in North Carolina a couple of years ago which he was supposed to give a talk at (at least, this is what the flyer said.)

I didn't go myself so don't know if he actually ever showed up, though. I'll see if I can find the flyer for it in my mailbox or wherever I saw it.

EDIT: typos, highlighting

na_so:
What is most important now is that our votes count.

Sincerely there is no empirical proof that a buhari/fashola ticket would be more effective than a GEJ/sambo or an Atiku/soludo ticket. The president sets the tone of governance, and even if he has a very sound VP, things might still not work. If a president after winning elections feel threatened by the general goodwill his VP enjoys, he can choose to make him very redundant and systematically make him look the devil in public eye.

Be real with yourself, man. Ignore ethnicity/tribe and religion temporarily. You KNOW in your heart of hearts that Buhari/Fashola will administer the country better and increase the prestige of the country more than a GEJ/Sambo one.

The problem is ethnicity and religion. People fear that Buhari is a religious zealot. And that this is a Northern/SW plot to dominate the country again. For me, I am not afraid of any zealotry by Buhari if ACN OKs him. They are not a Muslim/Sharia party. They mostly seem interested in growing the economy and making Nigeria a wealthy country, not religion.

Me, I don't give a damn about religion. I'll vote for an atheist if I am sure he will not discriminate against me religiously and will grow the economy. An atheist who will grow the economy is better than a Christian who will cause it to stagnate.

I also understand that people are afraid of Northerners/Yoruba collaborating to dominate the country. But can you really have beef with this ticket if it beats the PDP, despite all of the vast powers the PDP has? Democracy is democracy, is it not? It isn't like Buhari/Fashola will then gobble up all the federal money and use it only to enrich their regions, is it? They will be extra sensitive to this issue and be fair, will they not?

How can you justify supporting Goliath over David, just because Goliath is from your tribe?

I think an Atiku/Soludo ticket can be fine for the economy, if they can be trusted not to gobble up money. But personally, I don't trust Atiku not to do that. And with the recent issues surrounding Soludo, I cannot be sure he won't steal either.

@fstranger: Ultimately, it is damning (at least imo) of the Nigerian voter if he/she prefers a clearly inferior ticket just due to religious/ethnic sentiment.

stranger:
I don't buy the idea that certain individuals are better or more clever than the others

That unfortunately is not true. Some leaders are better than others. Some people are smarter than others. It is just reality. If you elect a mumu president, your country will suffer. I'm not talking about pure intelligence alone, a lot of it too is people skills, leadership, speaking ability, etc. But these things matter. You cannot progress as a country if you are constantly picking inferior leaders, imo. It puts you at a disadvantage relative to other countries, for example.

There is always someone able to do the job from every group, and in the spirit of fairness, every group needs to be given a chance

This affirmative-action type of mentality weakens a land. What if the group whose turn it is is not fielding a quality candidate? Why not just let everyone compete, and let the best man win?

Nigeria is not a peculiar case, Obama was not the smartest person in the last presidential election
Hillary was, but for reasons known to Americans, they voted for Obama

No, Obama is/was quite a bit smarter than Hillary. Remember, Hillary had a lot of the part machinery over Obama. She had every advantage over Obama, but was beaten fair and square. And as she started to lose, she also played this "minority" card, and make Obama out to be some sort of sexist anti-woman bigot.
I hate politics like that, it is disgusting and crude. If you lose fair and square, don't play the race/minority/bigotry card.

Also,when Bush became the president, he wasnt the smartest candidate around, Gore was the first time, and Kerry was the second time. Americans voted for Bush because unlike other candidates, he was more like the ordinary guy on the street, with a lot of common sense.

I don't mean raw intelligence, i.e., IQ. A lot of this stuff is about dealing with and managing people. Bush outmaneuvered Gore, despite having a lot of disadvantages. He was the more personable and appealing candidate, Gore made lots of blunders.

That said, it is a temporary thingy
I expect things to change overtime, not in my lifetime of course
Until then, ZONING 4 LYF