A hat tip and Afronerd No-prize goes to Sergio Mims of Ebony/Jet Online and the Shadow & Act blog for emailing this next story to our attention. In the spirit of full disclosure, I had a conversation with Mr. Starks concerning this NIGAZ controversy over it's relative importance. The conclusion was that there are so many other stories of Black pathology, perhaps a Nigerian petro company called NIGAZ is just an aggregate of the foolishness that allows the naming of this outfit to be negligible by comparison. You decide. For the specifics, check out this excerpt, courtesy of the BBC News online:
A marketing blunder in Nigeria has got online communities all of a twitter, after a joint oil and gas venture with Russia was named Nigaz.
Russia's Gazprom and Nigeria's state-operated NNPC formed the company - pronounced "nye-gaz" - last week.
Nigerians No Nigaz, a group formed on the social networking site Facebook, says the name could be pronounced in a way offensive to black people.
Users of Twitter have also expressed disbelief at the decision.
"Russian & Nigerian companies have formed new oil firm called... Nigaz. I'm not lying," says Osa Oyegun, under her Twitter name ChocolateMezzo.
The topic has prompted hundreds of tweets.
Henry Makiwa, known as makiwahenry, said: "Lol [laugh out loud] of the day: Russian/Nigerian oil conglomerate has had PR branding blunder after naming joint company 'Nigaz'."
'Bright moment'
Correspondents say despite the hoo-ha caused online, newspapers in Nigeria have not picked up on the story yet.
Again, folks is this controversy hinged on the acronym being lost in translation? The pronunciation is different and as noted, the story hasn't been picked up in Nigeria....yet. Any thoughts? Click on the link below for more of this debacle:
Nigaz name sparks racism debate
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