Get Rich Quick Syndrome and Nigerian Literature in the 21st century: An Examination of Ameh’s Sweet Taste of Shame.

Abstract

According to the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO), Nigeria is one of the leading African countries in human trafficking. Towards the end of the twentieth century, human traffickers engaged in this crime for the purposes of supplying persons for prostitution, begging, domestic servitude and other sundry under-paid and exploited labour. But a new dimension to human trafficking reared its ugly head in the 21st century. Young women and girls are recruited into “baby factories” under the false pretext that they would that they would be given jobs or safe abortions. Thus, they are confined to the so-called baby factories and forced to give birth for sale. Some of the victims are impregnated by men specifically employed for such purposes. The babies are then sold for domestic or international adoptions, rituals, slave labour or sexual exploitation. This the shameful and dehumanizing crime explored in Ameh’s Sweet Taste of Shame. This paper shall discuss the moral depravity of Nigerians as dramatized by four teenage girls who have been forced into producing children for a morally bankrupt syndicate spearheaded by a couple (Doctor and Cash madam). The law represented by the Divisional Police Officer is also an accomplice and signifies the dimension of the heinous crime and the need for action to transform our society and restore its cherished values.