Read and Become Wise

I found one of my books in the bin and rescued it.

"Well you left it lying around for so long, and then the cat pissed on it," Abu explained, as I wiped the cover clean of vegetable peelings.

It doesn't look much - scarcely more than a pamphlet. It's actually a chapbook written to deliver a moral lesson, in this case how to manage your money properly. It's poorly printed with crude black and white drawings. The text is not set straight on some of the pages. But this is one of the most treasured books in my library. I bought it in a bookshop in Nigeria more than twenty years ago and it is a classic of Onitsha Market publishing called Money Hard to get but Easy to Spend: Read and Become Wise. And reading it again I became nostalgic for West Africa.

So here is some of its wisdom and a taste of the delicious style of writing so common in Nigeria.

Jealousy too much nowadays, whatever you do people must jealous you for that and say against you. One wife one trouble, two wives two troubles. Not the person who calls police do win, but the person who is right.

Money is hard to get but easy to spend. Big man big trouble, small man small trouble. Time is money and waits for nobody. Law is no respect of any person, whether rich or poor.

ONE DAY VISIT HOSPITAL OR THE LEPER COLONY AND SEE HOW GOD LOVES YOU.

Men are powerful and do suffer. Women are difficult. You can't win them by lies because you can't feed them on lies. Money hard to get but women do not know. They are the same with children.

MAN PROPOSES GOD DISPOSES

No condition permanent in this world. Big or small, rich or poor, all will die. When some people hate you, some people will love you. Make monkey go England and come back, it will still answer monkey.

Prevention is better than cure. A word is enough for the wise. When an old woman falls down twice, she counts the contents of her basket. My son is tall is not power. That a man talks too much does not mean he knows word. Everyday is not Christmas; You cannot pass me in two ways, if you are taller than me I will be shorter than you. If you are richer than me I will be poorer than you.



Nobody is perfect. A patient dog eats the fattest bone. Not that wrestling started from morning to night is important but who wins. It is true that it is hard to see a man who does not like the affairs of women and that it is also hard to see woman who does not like the affairs of men? … Be a man of your words. Do not say something you don't know about it.

Women like to engineer words so don't agree all that your wife tells you.

There are two major things that kills a man. MONEY AND WOMEN.

These type of men and women dancing are the type of people who spend money too much. They can get 10 Naira a day and spend all on useless things. Give me twelve bottles of beer give me one roasted fowl, tune to Congo, tune to Nigeria, tune to Ghana, put better records, are what their bodies want.

Harlots are dangerous women and should be strongly bewared for. They are commonly found in hotels. They contribute to the existence of holiganism, robber and the deteriorating immoral life of some of our boys.


So now you know.

But amazing what the Internet turns up. I discovered that a writer called Kurt Thometz has compiled a book of some of the best market literature from Nigeria called Life Turns a man Up and Down: High Life, Useful Advice, and Mad English (Random House) and ordered it from Amazon. It's a wonderful collection of texts, and just goes to show that a nation's most loved literature does not have to be printed on glossy paper, does not even have to couched in faultless English to find a lasting place in the heart of its people.