Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani: I Do Not Come to You by Chance
This book, the first novel from Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, is hilarious, with moments of pathos, and a fresh point of view.
Amazon.com recommended it to me as I was busy buying books by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; I thought ‘OK, I’ll read a series of Nigerian books as part of my summer reading.
Young Kingsley Ibe is the family’s first born male, and with that status goes many privileges – and responsibilities. After graduating with a Masters in Chemical Engineering, he has no success in his search for a job with an oil company in Nigeria, and consequently loses the love of his life, Ola, to another who has secure employment.
Worse, his retired father has a stroke, and the family discovers that with all the fees required, they haven’t enough for his continued care, so Kingsley must approach his uncle, Boniface Mbamalu, more familiarly known as Cash Daddy, for funds to transfer his father to a long term care facility, and, later, for his father’s funeral.
Serious Kingsley’s eyes nearly pop as he sees the life his uncle is living, cars, women, designer watches, shoes, suits and all the trappings of new wealth. Soon, his uncle makes a convincing case for Kingsley coming to work for him, the better to help out his family of mother, brothers and sister, now that he is the senior male in the family.
Kingsley discovers he has a gift for the work – which is writing 419s, those scam letters which I frequently publish in this column. I loved being on the inside, learning how strong possibility e-mail addresses are netted, how response e-mails are massaged – not unlike fund raising techniques by charitable organizations in the US. Kingsley’s education helps him achieve enormous financial success in a very short time – but he finds that all the cash and designer goods in the word do not solve his problems nor make him happy.
I learned a lot about how successful many of these scammers are, and how the money made is spread throughout the Nigerian communities. The author takes a balanced view, balancing the way the cash makes life easier for people – a lot of people, because the rich man has many obligations to his community, balanced against the disgust, and sick fear felt by his religious mother and aunt, and his one time girlfriend, when they learn the work he is doing. They are disappointed that a man of such promise has sunk to making so much money in a dishonest way. The book also does not deal sympathetically with those who have given or lost money to the scammers, nor, in my opinion, does the ending satisfy.
This is one of the funniest parts of the book – a group of Nigerian scammers is about to meet with a representative of a major US investment firm. He thinks he will be meeting with the Nigerian Minister of Transportation to discuss building a new airport; the reality is that Cash Daddy, in disguise, will be pretending to be the minister. Kingsley protests that Cash Daddy looks nothing like the minister, and Cash Daddy responds:
“Let me tell you something . . . Me, I really like these oyibo people. They’re very very nice people. See how they came and showed us that the ground where we’ve been dancing Atilogwu has crude oil under it. If not for them, we might never have found out. But Kings,” he dragged in his dangling foot and sat up in the tub, “white man doesn’t understand black man’s face. Do you know tht I can give you my passport to travel with . . . Even if your nose is ten times bigger than my own, they won’t even notice?”
It was a fascinating book. I understand better now why 419 scams work. (419 is the section of the Nigerian criminal code making scam e-mails a crime; thus the crime is called ‘a 419’) There are some very funny and very insightful moments in the book. It is no where near the level of literature that you experience with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, but there is more humor, and the book shows a more modern day Nigeria. Not a bad summer read, but not great literature.
June 18, 2011 - Posted by intlxpatr | Africa, Books, Character, Community, Crime, Cross Cultural, Cultural, Financial Issues, Fund Raising, Humor, Living Conditions, Scams, Work Related Issues | 419, Nigerian, Nigerian Scams
2 Comments »
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
-
Recent Posts
Blog Stats
- 2,815,006 hits
Pages
Meta
Recent Comments
Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Archives
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
Catagories
- Advent
- Adventure
- Afghanistan
- Africa
- Aging
- Air France
- Alaska
- Arts & Handicrafts
- Beauty
- Biography
- Birds
- Blogging
- Blogroll
- Books
- Botswana
- Building
- Bureaucracy
- Character
- Charity
- Chocolate
- Christmas
- Circle of Life and Death
- Civility
- Cold Drinks
- color
- Communication
- Community
- Cooking
- Counter-terrorism
- Crime
- Cross Cultural
- Cultural
- Customer Service
- Detective/Mystery
- Dharfur
- Diet / Weight Loss
- Doha
- Easter
- Eating Out
- Education
- Eid
- Entertainment
- Entrepreneur
- Environment
- EPIC Book Club
- Events
- Exercise
- ExPat Life
- Experiment
- Faith
- Family Issues
- Fiction
- Financial Issues
- Fitness / FitBit
- Florida
- Food
- France
- fraud
- Free Speech
- Friends & Friendship
- Fund Raising
- Gardens
- Generational
- Geography / Maps
- Germany
- GoogleEarth
- Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council
- Halloween
- Health Issues
- Heritage
- History
- Holiday
- Home Improvements
- Hot drinks
- Hotels
- Humor
- Hurricanes
- Hygiene
- India
- Interconnected
- iPhone
- Iran
- Ireland
- Italy
- Joke
- Jordan
- Just Bad English
- Kenya
- KLM
- Kuwait
- Language
- Law and Order
- Leadership
- Lectionary Readings
- Lent
- Lies
- Living Conditions
- Local Lore
- Locard Exchange Principal
- Lumix
- Mardi Gras
- Marketing
- Marriage
- Mating Behavior
- Middle East
- Money Management
- Morocco
- Movie
- Moving
- Music
- New Orleans
- News
- Nigeria
- NonFiction
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Parenting
- Paris
- Pensacola
- Pet Peeves
- Pets
- Photos
- Poetry/Literature
- Political Issues
- Privacy
- Public Art
- Qatar
- Qatteri Cat
- Quality of Life Issues
- Ramadan
- Random Musings
- Rants
- Recipes
- Relationships
- Renovations
- Restaurant
- Road Trips
- Safety
- Satire
- Saudi Arabia
- Scams
- Seattle
- Shopping
- Social Issues
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Spiritual
- Statistics
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- Sudan
- sunrise series
- Sunsets
- Survival
- Tag
- Tanzania
- Technical Issue
- Thanksgiving
- Tibet
- Tools
- Transparency
- Travel
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Uncategorized
- Values
- Venice
- Weather
- Wildlife
- Women's Issues
- WordPress
- Words
- Work Related Issues
- YMCA
- Zakat
- Zambia
- Zanzibar
- Zimbabwe
Blogroll
- A.Word.A.Day
- Global Incident Map
- Global Voices Online � Kuwait
- Google Earth
- Google Earth Blog
- John Lockerbie Gulf design
- Kuwait Paper Dump
- National Public Radio
- Ogle Earth
- Operation Hope – Kuwait
- Robin Pope Safaris Zambia
- the Journey: Kisses From Katie
- The Lectionary
- Weather Underground
- Wind Map
- WordPress.com
- WordPress.org
I thoroughly devoured Adaob’s IDNCTYBC and enjoyed it so much. I am writing a critical review on it soon.
You can always visit here to read some of my current reviews on African fiction: http://www.criticalliteraturereview.blogspot.com
Nice looking blog.
Wow. Joseph, I am on your book review website right now, and you are a serious book reviewer! I look forward to visiting you often.
I tried to comment on your blog, but it wouldn’t recognize me.