BOOK REVIEW: I do not come to you by chance by Tricia Adaobi Nwaubani

This book by Tricia Adaobi Nwaubani is a fictionalised account of Kingsley, young, promising, educated and broke. PHOTO| COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • It is a fictionalised account of Kingsley, young, promising, educated and broke. Kingsley is the pride of his family, who, armed with a degree, hopes to change their lives for better.
  • But then life gets at him and tragedy strikes his family, at which point he discovers that without money and connections, helping his family will rapidly become a pipe dream.

Most of you have probably got an email from those scammers in Nigeria – the so-called 419 guys who tell you that they are a rich African prince who just needs a little bit of your help and a little bit of your money to get to their fortune, currently inaccessible for one reason or the other in some bank.

This book is the story of how such things happen.

It is a fictionalised account of Kingsley, young, promising, educated and broke. Kingsley is the pride of his family, who, armed with a degree, hopes to change their lives for better.

But then life gets at him and tragedy strikes his family, at which point he discovers that without money and connections, helping his family will rapidly become a pipe dream.

And without money, he will not be able to marry the love of his life, Ola, because he cannot possibly afford her bride price. He turns to an uncle of ‘disreputable morals’ who has a lot of money but not a lot of scruples, and is faced with the dilemma of what he hoped he would never have to do.

You can get it at The Magunga Bookstore, Bookstop and Prestige Bookstore.