There are films that one watches and finds the narrative compelling and the characters entertaining and may yet still struggle with concluding what the idea behind the film was. I Do Not Come to You by Chance does not entertain itself into this corner. Of course, it is an entertaining film and the characters are layered, flawed, scared, wrong in their good intentions, and, above all, human. Yet, this does not distract from what the film sets out to do—it sets out to answer the question, “is wisdom truly better than gold?”
I Do Not Come to You by Chance is a drama about university graduate Kingsley who has been struggling to find employment. His father’s failing health and financial pressures from the family force Kingsley to seek financial assistance from his uncle Boniface. Boniface is an inexplicably rich businessman who goes by the name “Cash Daddy.” He helps Kingsley’s family with the medical bills and requests that Kingsley comes to work for him. Kingsley is introduced to the world of high-level internet scams spearheaded by Cash Daddy. Kingsley learns of a Nigeria he was not familiar with, one synonymous with corruption, deceit, and tons of money. Director Ishaya Bako draws from his portrayal of the Nigerian working class in Fuelling Poverty (2012) and his later works portraying the Nigerian middle class—Lionheart (2018) and Road to Yesterday (2015)—to situate I Do Not Come to You by Chance at the intersection of these two worlds.
The film suggests in no unsubtle terms that, ultimately, money—no matter how ill-gotten—will triumph over the conventional system of getting an education and making it into the job market. Cash Daddy, uneducated and barely articulate, prospers. He has money, a beautiful home, a fleet of cars, and has earned the respect of the wider community. Kingsley’s father, on the other hand—a well-educated retired university lecturer—lives in a humble home, parks his old car because he cannot afford to drive it, and does not receive the same respect. His younger son has gotten into the habit of talking back at him, even strangers on the road do not offer him any respect, driving past him and splashing him with muddy water as they do. Yet Kingsley’s father rather naively still maintains that “wisdom is better than gold, understanding is better than choice silver.”
However, the film quickly undermines this belief, showing how the Nigerian system has failed those who hold onto wisdom. In fact, the very institutions that are supposed to reward honesty and education resemble scams of their own, almost identical to Cash Daddy’s operation. The first indicator of this is the pension fund that refuses to pay out money that people have already worked for, even though they have been putting money into that same fund for years. Secondly, Kingsley’s younger siblings are sent away from school because they have not paid their school fees. After years of ploughing tuition fees into education, the same education still has not secured Kingsley a job. Ironically, it is already demanding more money and sacrifice for the younger siblings’ fees without offering Kingsley the means to pay the fees. This system is pulling Kingsley back into a cycle of debt and obligation. In this regard, this system is suggested by the film to be a bigger scam than the one run by Cash Daddy.
Perhaps Cash Daddy is not only a scammer. Perhaps he is a hero, a Robin Hood of sorts. Upon seeing that the “right” way of doing things does not yield results, he resorts to unconventional means. Having access to unconventional wealth, he helps some people. The queue of people at his gate could be because he is known to throw money at the less fortunate. He gives generous commissions to his staff and when his family needs his help, he makes generous donations. It should also be noted that Cash Daddy does not seem to steal from people with nothing. He steals from the privileged, the likes of Mr. Winterbottom. Indeed, Cash Daddy does not come to these people by chance; he is cunning, methodical, and surgical in the carrying out of his scams.
With his uncle’s promise of wealth in one ear and his father’s reverence of wisdom in the other, Kingsley finds himself at a crossroads which he learns to navigate. From his father’s death, Kingsley learns not to demonize wealth, and from his uncle’s, he learns not to idolize it either. He emerges at the end, a scammer just like his uncle, but still maintains the airs of an ordinary man—humble, approachable, much like his father. Perhaps this mirrors the film’s deeper message: survival requires a sacrifice, be it moral, or personal.
Overall, through the hero’s journey, the story makes a scathing commentary on the zeitgeist of Nigeria in the 2020s. The system is in chaos. The consistent juxtaposition of Cash Daddy’s home and office versus Kingsley’s home brings this out. The educated are suffering at the hands of the “street smart” people, the health system is driven by profit, women are a commodity reserved only for those with a certain amount of money, so is respect. Crime, at different levels, be it writing assignments for university students, acting as a loan shark for your neighbour, or robbing a bank, has voluntarily and involuntarily become the daily bread.
