I Do Not Come To You By Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

What is good and evil? Is the crime in the act itself or the stimulating motive?

A good story. Very vivid. The author brings to light some of the main vices plaguing young Nigerians in the early 2000s that have gained even more prominence today.

The protagonist is a young Nigerian with an undoubtedly brilliantly endowed mind and intellect, but with the misfortune to be born into a low-income family. His intellectual gifts stand in stark contrast with his subsequent lifestyle, at odds with his father’s philosophy of success through honest hard work.

There’s a lot of themes to note about the nature of the characters in the book. The protagonist’s father is an adherent to the ideology of good, quality education. His devotion to intellectual prowess has come at odds with the changing economic climate, a clime unfavorable for uncreative minds set in the bookish ways of the ‘past.’ Despite his academic degrees, inability to adapt, and rigid philosophies ensured that his spawn lives the best part of their lives in poverty. It’s easy to see the amount of cultural emphasis on Western education all through.

The protagonist, on the other hand, is ‘misled’ by his insanely wealthy relative into the lifestyle of internet fraud. It is interesting to observe his motives for such a choice. The motives develop slowly, changing form throughout the character’s development until he realizes he’s done it all so his family can rise from the ashes of poverty. There are questions of morality, of the validity of right and wrong. What is good and evil? Is the crime in the act itself or the stimulating motive?

His wealthy relative, chief benefactor ‘Cash Daddy’, is an interesting character as well. His meteoric rise to wealth is as spectacular as it is illegal. He’s the Robin Hood of the common people, with a taste for the spectacular. His unpredictability, as well as his surprisingly broad acts of charity, stand in stark contrast to the darkly lit corridors of his path to wealth and fame.

We learn a lot from the protagonist’s mother. The thematic struggle between good and evil and the questions of morality are typified in her attitude to her son’s ill-got wealth.

It’s a great book with highly relevant themes. The internet fraud thing has reared its ugly head once again after a brief hiatus. This time, it’s come without the approval of many who have tried to justify the act with a sort of twisted, cold logic. The act might be illegal, but it raises a lot of questions of the morality of self-judgment. After all, the public office holders who continually loot the nation’s vast treasury are no less guilty than the ‘hardworking’ young men who swindle unsuspecting foreigners out of millions of dollars. One group is looting the nation and milking its people for all its worth. The other group focuses on ‘retrieving’ the looted funds in foreign accounts and ‘getting’ even with the white men for all the thieving years done in the name of colonialism. Who is in the right? Or is there any right at all? The questions are plain, the answers even less so, gray even, in different shades too.

There’s the perennial attitude of parents towards certain varsity courses. Some are seen as ‘elite’ while others are seen as trash. It’s a very good way to understand the lack of diversity in the nation’s professionals and the economy at large.

The writing is style is good, easy to follow, and distinctly Nigerian. All of the above is captured within the background of a rapidly evolving cultural and social setting. A really good read with one personal exception. That the author failed to tell the other side of the story is a bit disappointing. A lot of these fraudsters don’t find redemption as easy. Well, perhaps the author was trying to make a different point…

Highly recommended.