Scrutinizing a Trip to Malaysia: Transnational African Desperados and Human Organ Sales in Malaysia

Paper Abstract: This paper undertakes a close reading of the Nollywood film A Trip to Malaysia (2017) by investigating the dimensions and manifestations of Nigerian characters' transnational desperation and pull towards Malaysia for emergency enrichment. I argue that central to the dynamics of desperation in the film is the projection of human trafficking from Nigeria to Malaysia for organ harvesting and sale as perceived elixir for the economic challenges in the Nigerian homeland. The desperation manifests also at the level of syncretic spirituality by which a priest initiating the desperados into a protective cult dons a robe with a bold red sign of the cross. In the same way, the iconography of the candle that each of the initiates is to light and leave behind at the temple while going in search of the ''casket of fortune'' underscores another dimension of the desperation, considering that they can only find the casket after sleeping with the ''Great Mistress'' whose favourite meal is human sperm. The paper foregrounds the devastating consequences of their desperation across a transnational trajectory from Nigeria to Malaysia. It concludes that besides the growing economic reputation of Malaysia as a dream location, Nigerian government's recent endorsement of the Malaysian economic paradigm for development has served additionally to boost the popular imagination of Malaysia in the Nigeria. The situation then explains why Malaysia ranks high in contemporary Nigerian popular imagination with respect to Africa-Asia economic relations besides China and India.