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The pros and cons
of the so-called 419 phenomenon, came under scrutiny at Adaobi Tricia
Nwaubani’s reading of her debut novel ‘I Do Not Come To You By Chance.’
Organised by her Nigerian publishers Cassava Republic, the event was
the writer’s first reading in Nigeria; and it took place before a full
house at Quintessence, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Not a chance occurrence

“Everybody tends
to say my book is a book about 419,” Nwaubani said while elaborating
that as a trained psychologist her focus was more on behaviour change
and how people change because of certain situations. “It wasn’t that I
always dreamt of writing a book about 419 or that the story was calling
my name, you know the kind of thing I hear lots of artists and writers
say. The 419 idea was just perfect when it came. I just latched on to
it and then I developed it.

“When you hang
around the western world, they seem to have this awe of 419ers like
they are some bogeyman just going to sneak out and grab everybody.
Because I grew up in eastern Nigeria, (I knew) that they weren’t like
that. I know a lot of girls whose lives changed because their brothers
went into 419, a lot of parents whose lives changed because their sons
went into 419, communities who didn’t need to depend on the government
anymore because their sons were into 419. (Providing tarred roads,
portable water), things that weren’t there.”

The author said it was only possible to look at the 419ers solely as criminals when you “interact with the West.”

Nwaubani read from
her book about the lead character Kingsley’s visit to his
fraudster-uncle, Cash Daddy. This part featured the young unemployed
graduate’s awe at the hi-tech operations centre from which Cash Daddy
ran his global scam empire.

Providing musical interludes was Lola Okusami, who performed her songs and the aptly-titled ‘Maga Don Pay’ by Kelly Hansome.

The gift of humour

The Commonwealth
Best First Book (Africa Region) winner then took questions from the
audience. She pointed at her reading list as a likely influence on her
art.

“I tend to write
the way I speak,” she said. “Usually, I speak very fast and you can
imagine that’s me just running, speeding along with my words. I read a
lot of books for young adults and I watch cartoons -the style for those
kinds of books is lighter – when I combine the style in the children’s
books with what is in my brain that’s what comes out in my style.”

Nwaubani said her
style was influenced by short stories written by her eldest brother,
his collection of comic literature and an encounter with Frank
McCourt’s ‘Angela’s Ashes.’ “I grew up on African books. You know how
most of our books are serious, deep issues about deep, sordid lives.
There was this thing somewhere that every African story had to be
serious. I wasn’t aware that I had that mentality but I thought if I
was to write, I had to write about this very serious issue in a very
serious way.”

Why much of African
writing is serious remains a mystery to the author. “I laugh a lot and
Nigerians laugh a lot but once we write ‘Gbam! Serious! It’s as if we
are afraid that somewhere when they see us laughing they won’t take us
as seriously.” She however conceded that, “Humour on its own must be a
separate gift.”

Undoubtedly a gift for the author, who had the audience laughing constantly to her comments and responses to their questions.

Starring Cash Daddy

“Cash Daddy is a
prototype 419er. Every Igbo person that knows an average 419er knows a
Cash Daddy and there’s nothing that he’s doing that is going to
surprise you,” Nwaubani said.

Her intended
message with the book might also come as no surprise. “I didn’t want to
write my book with a message. I was just telling a story. But I know
that sometimes they say your subconscious writes along with you and
there’s a message that you are passing across that you are not aware
of. I will judge a government official who steals my taxes more harshly
than I would judge a 419er who goes to steal one stranger’s money and
brings it back to develop his country. Nobody reads my book and comes
out with a negative impression, in fact the consistent things I hear,
everybody around the world falls in love with Cash Daddy and people say
they almost find themselves hoping that the scam succeeds.”

With the success
trailing the novel especially in the purported ‘mugu capital’ – the
United States – the question of when Kingsley and Cash Daddy would hit
the big screen soon came up. Nwaubani revealed that her agent is in
talks with some companies in relation to producing a film, but said
it’s not connected to the one Hollywood actor Ben Stiller is rumoured
to be producing. Stiller had himself recently fallen victim to a credit
card scam orchestrated by a young Nigerian.

Falling ‘Mugu’

During her recent
trip to India for festivities surrounding the 2010 commonwealth prizes,
Nwaubani who had not been out of the country since 2005, met many
people who seemed to know someone who had been scammed. She also met
someone who was lucky to have only fallen ‘half-mugu.’ “It made me
realize how deeply penetrating this 419 thing has grown. I was really
shocked.”

One speaker was
interested in knowing what the future holds for the reputation of
younger Nigerians at home or abroad if the arts decide to empathise
with fraudsters through songs like ‘Maga don Pay’ and Nwaubani’s novel.

“I wished my
country didn’t have these issues but it just so happens that we do and
it just so happens that people do these things because of certain
reasons and that was what I was trying to portray.” The author conceded
to having no control over the emotions her book evokes.

No easy task

Some wanted to know
what her plans were for promoting aspiring writers. “Nigerians have
never stopped writing. People have had badly-printed, self-published
books. People just have the impression that there is some way it’s done
somehow and very few people bother to investigate that process.
Everything I know about how to get published, I found out online.” Her
Nigerian publishers are the only ones she has physically met in her
global production team.

“It takes an extra
effort. The average Nigerian style is that you write your manuscript
today and then you send it to the printer tomorrow and they send it
back to you all bound and then you have a book launch over the weekend
and invite traditional rulers, uncles, aunties and then they come and
give you some millions of naira and you make so much money and after
that the book dies.”

She pointed out
that all her publishers contributed towards making a better material of
the 399-page novel that has steadily gained a global fan base.

She stressed the
role of agents and publishers as people who can shape the success of a
novel according to what the market requires. “They wouldn’t let you go
until they are satisfied,” she said, pointing out that certain books
that need such input have gone on to win indigenous prizes, but hardly
make a mark abroad.

For those who
wondered why the book was published abroad first, Nwaubani said
infrastructural problems in Nigeria meant the book could not be
released at the same time as the US and UK editions. She however
maintained description of herself as an “impostor” in the midst of more
established writers who she said come at literary texts from an
academic angle and manage to drop all those names that are unknown to
her.

Nwaubani’s dream is
to own her own publishing house and show aspiring writers how they can
easily get published at home and abroad. She however offered one lesson
in kick-starting the process. “If they don’t like the voice they won’t
publish it in the first place.”

Guests at the
reading must have liked Nwaubani’s voice as copies of ‘I Do Not Come To
You By Chance’ were soon flying off the shelves with a long line of
fans eager to get autographs.

Review of the book – page 46.