#28: Time & Chance?

A Review of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's I Do Not Come to You by Chance

Greetings, once again dear reader! 👋🏽

I hope you are doing well and taking good care of yourself.
Welcome to another edition of this spectacular newsletter.

I Do Not Come To You By Chance tells the story of email scams in Nigeria through the eyes of a young graduate, Kingsley Ibe. Unable to find a job and saddled with family responsibilities as the opara, he turns to his uncle for help. It is the author’s debut novel, published in 2009, around the time it became somewhat socially acceptable to talk about and flaunt a lifestyle supported by online fraud.

When Kingsley’s father falls ill and is hospitalized, he visits his mother’s brother, Boniface, who had once lived with them, to ask him for some money to pay the hospital bills. A known financial criminal in Aba, Kingsley’s parents would not have supported his decision to go to Boniface for help but at that point, he didn’t have any other option.

His father had raised him and his siblings to believe that education was everything but after several rejection letters from the jobs he applied to, Kingsley begins to question the substance of his father’s life-long view. What was education worth when you could not earn any money with the degrees? As though that was not enough, Ola, his girlfriend left him for a richer man.

Boniface (aka Cash Daddy) asks Kingsley to come and work for him. He refuses at first but later agrees since it is his responsibility to care for his family as the firstborn son. His uncle had also helped him out with his father’s hospital expenses so what better way to repay him? The author paints the protagonist as a good person who is forced by the issues of life to do bad things but I disagree.

“Not being able to take care of my family was the real sin. Gradually, I had learnt to take my mind off the mugus and focus on the things that really mattered. Thanks to me, my family was now as safe as a tortoise under its shell.”

After Kingsley makes his first hit, he takes some money and gifts home to his mother. The equivalent of taking your first salary home to your parents, I presume. As time passed and the gifts increased and even became larger, Mrs Ibe started to refuse the gifts and voice her displeasure with the job her son was doing. She knew what her brother, Boniface, did for a living—and by extension, her precious son, Kingsley, but she could not bring herself to say it…until things took a turn for the worse.

Kingsley nad his family adjusted to a new life as his career with Cash Daddy seemed to be going incredibly well and he even accompanied him on international trips. He continued to pay his siblings’ fees and cater to them despite his mother’s reservations, which he considered as “mental shackles of a husband who had lived from beginning to end in a cloud.” When Kingsley’s brother, Godfrey tells him that he wants to drop out of school and “start making his own money,” all hell breaks loose and it’s a downward spiral from that point on.

It’s the classic case of money changing people, which I don’t quite agree with. I think money amplifies people’s behaviour, not that it makes them different altogether. Kingsley started with wanting to cater for his family but at what point did that change? Also, why didn’t he stop?

Although it’s a fictional story, readers can easily draw parallels and see the harsh realities in Nigeria today, especially now that almost everyone knows a fraudster. The book highlights how fraudsters use various tactics to scam people. There are quite a number of themes explored by the author, leaving readers with so much to unpack.

The most relatable part of the story is probably the unfairness of reality, how life’s issues many times have no regard for one’s morals and standards. She does a stellar job with the characters and skillfully paints each scene such that you can almost see them. Overall, it’s a rather enjoyable read and I recommend it.

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Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Kindly leave a comment.
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