I never said they were in the pocket of the oil tycoons. The oil tycoons aren't the ones embezzling the country's entire national budget.
You're talking about $200 or $300 per capita of GDP going to corruption, maximum.
They have an economy comparable in size to Indiana, with 190 million people.
Do you have a source?
According to https://www.pwc.com/ng/en/publications/impact-of-corruption-... the cost of corruption in Nigeria is around $1000 per person per year, and rising. Given that the GDP per capita is estimated at around $2180 per person, this is not a small impact.
(I was surprised to find that GDP per capita is less than income per capita.)
you're tipping your hand a little much
You may think that "shithole" is too strong of a statement. But that description seems about right to me. What is average for Nigeria would qualify as a horrible slum in most countries.
It's a term that was recently applied, with almost comical precision, to countries that are predominantly black. It was applied in respect of the people from those countries, specifically immigrants, more specifically regarding their individual merit as potential Americans.
TL; DR When discussing race, particularly anything relating to black people or predominantly-black countries, it's probably best to use another word.
I'm not going to bother keeping up with every tweet from our cheeto-in-chief to keep track of things that might offend politically correct people this week. There is no limit to what can potentially offend others. There is a limit to how much of my attention that I wish to devote to the topic.
If that bothers you, perhaps you should reconsider what offends you. Because like it or not, "shithole" is an accurate description of Nigeria. It would not be a fair description of, say, Botswana.
I am neither telling you to stop using that word nor expressing offense. Language is complicated. Two words with similar definitions can mean vastly different things. Understanding that is part of communication.
You now know this term carries additional implied meaning. Ignoring that fact could be used to communicate a message. Similar to how some people selectively use the words "retarded" and "fag" loosely to communicate something meaningful. (Others are simply linguistically clumsy, or mean to communicate something hateful.) Depending on the circumstances, that may be what you want to communicate, completely unnecessary (thereby lowering your signal:noise ratio) or even debilitating to your argument. Knowing that implied information simply allows you to control that nuance.
Same goes for everyone else in this subthread of course.