Developing a Route to Big Man Masculinity: Protest Masculinity in Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s I Do Not Come to You by Chance

In this chapter, I use Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s debut novel, I Do Not Come to You By Chance (IDNCtYBC), to establish a link between the protest masculinities of young Nigerian men and Nigerian Big Man masculinities. Through the characters of Kingsley and Cash Daddy, Nwaubani demonstrates a path from protest masculinities to Nigerian Big Man masculinities. In the novel, protest masculinity offers young Nigerian men a means—though illegal—for fulfilling their gendered expectations in a society that makes masculine success difficult to achieve and, when successful, provides a possible route for young Nigerian men to achieve a Big Man masculinity. Moreover, when one focuses on the rhetoric these Big Men and Big-Men-to-be use to justify their illegal activities, it becomes evident that these men have found a way to redefine masculinity in a manner that legitimizes those actions and their masculinity.