"NIGAZ: Lost in translation?"

From BBC News:

Nigaz: Lost in translation?

Nigaz - a racist term or an innocent mistake? This is the question dominated social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Last week Russia's energy giant Gazprom formed a $2.5 billion joint venture with Nigeria's oil company NNPC to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Africa's most populous nation.

But while this deal has been celebrated as reinforcing Russia's position within Europe, the reaction among some Nigerians has been far from ecstatic. One group on Facebook calling itself 'Nigerians No Nigaz' writes 'How more derogatory can it be ... to set up a NEW company for the JV and name it NIGAZ...this is derogatory - surely not Nigerian-like.'

Is it just innocent PR blunder or is the world becoming too politically correct? Should the new company be renamed? Will this incident have any lasting impact on Russia-African relations? Do you know of any memorable PR blunders?

link: http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=6675&edition=2&ttl=20090702060359