While the MAGA phenomenon may be new to America, Nigerians have long known that “magas” are the victims of scams or frauds — a particularly ironic moniker, considering the way that thousands of Americans were scammed and hoodwinked by the Con-in-Chief, Donald Trump.
They even have famous songs celebrating the successful consummation of schemes to separate suckers from their money.
“Magas don pay, shout hallelujah” goes the lyric from famous Nigerian singer Kelly Hansome, which translated from Pidgin English to standard English roughly means: “We just finished stealing from these suckers, thank God!”
Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald appears to be the first Westerner to make this connection.
Most amazing thing I have learned today.
MAGA – you know, like Make America Great Again – is in Nigerian parlance a word that means easily fooled idiot.
So, hey there all you MAGA folks – Nigeria knew what you were long before the rest of us did.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 1, 2018
There’s even a listing for the Nigerian meaning of maga in the Urban Dictionary.
This may not seem relevant or particularly newsworthy if there wasn’t a darker side to the Trump-Nigeria connection — as there always seems to be when dealing with Trump.
Ten months ago, the Nigerian Army fired live ammunition into a crowd of over a thousand Muslims at a protest after they threw rocks at the soldiers. Amnesty International said that forty protesters died and hundreds more were wounded.
The government used Trump’s words to justify their mass murder under the color of law. In a video posted to their Twitter account, the Nigerian military played a clip of Trump justifying the use of violence against rock-throwing migrants at the southern border. “We’re not going to put up with that. They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back” said Trump.
But it cannot be denied that “magas” is a truly appropriate and universal term for suckers, that somehow predating Donald Trump’s political career entering the term into the American lexicon. Some things are just so strange and ironic, they cannot be made up or fabricated — but knowing Trump, there’s probably somehow a tweet about this too!
Check out Kelly Hansome’s dance song about Trump’s mindless followers, crafted seven years before he declared his racist run for president and seared the MAGA hat into the national consciousness as the new white hood:
