Or, is it the case that, in the case of software systems, a tendering process is actually incapable of making a good decision about what proposal or vendor to select?

A talking point in the US media has been how come Obama's tech people can mastermind a political reelection campaign but not a healthcare website.

Well this is how they set about hiring

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/rsvp-for-the-analytics-event-meetup

and this is who did it and how

Exercise for the reader to draw their own distinctions between that and the average corporate/government IT project.

In Nigeria inadequate healthcare infrastructure means that when people are or feel sick, they go to the local chemist and self prescribe something for their ailment (or they may ask the salesperson who usually is not a pharmacist for their recommendation).

This is called self-medication. The government mounts campaigns against this but people do it because they don't have access to doctors and/or pharmacists.

The IT industry has a tendency to hire doctors and pharmacist yet still proceed via technological and requirement specifications to self medicate. This does not augur well for a successful procurement.