419: Coming to you by chance

I ask you to run and grab you a copy of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s book ‘I Do Not Come to You By Chance’. This writer may have just written one of the most comprehensive documentation in prose-song of the ravages of the locust of materialism on our people’s way of life.

The main character, Kingsley, loses his idealism and joins his uncle Boniface aka Cash Daddy in a lucrative crime syndicate that shakes down gullible foreigners from the safety of the cyber-cafes that litter Nigeria’s urban centers. The story of “419” is now familiar to the point of cliché.

The foreigner is lured into paying various “fees” for the (empty) promise of reaping huge sums of money allegedly stashed in a bank vault somewhere. This scam has so affected Nigeria’s international reputation. The country has a criminal code numbered “419” that attempts to deal with the scourge. Overwhelming and dismaying to the senses is Nwaubani’s faithful chronicle of the changing of the same seasons of anomie (apologies Soyinka).

In this book, one learns quickly that poverty comes in many forms. Nwaubani’s Nigeria has become really poor in ways that more famous Nigerian writers have not been able to convey in several dense books. The reader comes face to face with the ravages of materialism in the pretence of the new evangelical religion, willing faux wealth on the dispossessed (for a modest tithe of course).

The book tracks the flight of purposeful existence and provides the reader a concise, succinct, deep commentary on so many social issues: the extended family system, corruption, the scourge of materialism, etc. Nwaubani’s Nigeria reeks of rampant anti-intellectualism. Hear Cash Daddy berating Kingsley for wearing his idealism and intellect on his tattered sleeves: “Is honesty an achievement? Personality is one thing, achievement is another thing. So what has your father achieved? How much money is he leaving for you when he dies? Or is it his textbooks that you’ll collect and pass on to your own children?”

Priceless was the Onitsha-Market-Literature style love letter (p72). Original and scrumptious turns of phrases open your mouth wide in wonder and awe. This is unapologetic prose – you either get it or you don’t – there is no appendix or index explaining what eba means.

It takes confidence to have that attitude. “At age seven, when it was confirmed that her right hand could reach across her head and touch her left ear, Augustina moved back to her father’s house and started attending primary school. Being long and skinny had worked to her advantage.” I love Nwaubani; she wields her words expertly, sometimes like an accurate missile or sometimes like a soothing balm. “Odinkemmelu took his body odour away to the kitchen and returned with a teaspoon of salt.” Sweet. The prose even gives voice to inanimate objects: “My tender triceps started grumbling.”

And if I could, I would sing a lusty oriki to the prodigious industry of the editors; the book is edited just right and it retains the author’s signature voice. It takes great skill to edit a book of this sort and still keep it chock full of crisp rollicking prose. “My father was a walking encyclopedia, and he flipped his pages with the zeal and precision of a magician.” The furtiveness of the sentence before your eyes holds your attention captive as it hands you over to the next sentence. Brilliant. The writing reminds me so much of Ike Oguine’s ‘A Squatter’s Tale’; maybe also, Chukwuemeka Ike’s ‘The Potter’s Wheel’.

There are all these delightful characters with colourful names like World Bank, Protocol Officer and Wizard. The book expertly showcases the caricature as real life and out of the pages of this book; Nigeria simply spills out into the streets of my part of America. For Nwaubani uses every bit of a conversation and simply drops it in the book.

Her descriptive powers are fuelled by a darkly delicious imagination. “Cash Daddy’s cheeks were puffy, his neck was chunky, his five limbs were thick and long.” Five limbs! Lawd have mercy! And her Pidgin English is impeccable: “Make una come see o, Graveyard don begin dey use perfume.” One nice fringe benefit: I learnt a new fable about why the tortoise’s shell is cracked in several places. I won’t tell you; you will have to read the book yourself!

As a first novel, I Do Not Come To You By Chance’ does show its flaws gently, ever so gently. It is fairly autobiographical in parts. For the most part, Nwaubani pulled off the tough trick of disengaging from the characters.

However, the reader keeps seeing the writer in the main character Kingsley (interesting enough, Kingsley is also named Opara - first son, and Adaobi, Nwaubani’s name means first daughter). The research must have been considerable and it shows in the quality of the book. Finally, I offer the criticism that the book does come off as a morality tale that begins too neatly and ends too tidily, Life is a lot messier than that. But who cares? It was pure fun looking at Nigeria’s myriad issues through this mirror of a thousand delights.