Baby Boom amidst Covid-19 Pandemic: of Unwilling Fathers, Painful Motherhood and Poverty in Ozuitem Rural Community, Southeast Nigeria

Abstract

This study interrogates the socio-economic outcomes of the COVID-19 lockdown especially the unexamined theme of the baby boom and unrestrained sexual behavior of teenagers in Ozuitem rural community, Abia State southeast Nigeria. It contends that although the lockdown restricted movements by keeping nearly everybody at home, it inadvertently provided opportunities for the predictably idle teenagers to grow their sexual appetite and experiment with their bodies. This yielded unwilling fathers and painful motherhood. With thirty-five (35) teenage mothers and a colony of male partners as of December 29, 2020, what appeared as a sex bazaar in a sleepy rural community clearly put UNICEF’s prediction of a massive baby boom for Africa between now and 2050 in sharper perspective. Using an admixture of oral interviews, participant-observer method and secondary sources, the study yielded curious and bizarre outcomes particularly the demography of the unwilling fathers, inappropriate rural perceptions and unpalatable insight into the future of the community and the wider society. To achieve this, newspapers, interviews, archival materials and other extant secondary sources have been used for data collection, analysis and the interpretation of results. The paper employs the qualitative method of analysis.