By OLUSOJI DAOMI
There is a new kind of trouble quietly stalking Nigerian commerce. It does not arrive with a gun. It comes with a mobile phone, a transfer notification and a customer who looks perfectly respectable.
A trader sells goods worth ₦300,000. The customer transfers the money. The trader sees the alert and releases the goods. Everybody goes home happy. Then, three days later, the trader’s account is restricted. The customer has disputed the transaction.
Suddenly, the trader cannot pay his supplier. He cannot settle his transport bill. He cannot withdraw money for the family. A transaction that looked perfectly ordinary has become a financial emergency. This is not merely a banking problem. It is a problem of proof.
Nigerian commerce has always been built substantially on trust. The customer says, “I will transfer.” The seller hears the alert and releases the goods. The transaction may take less than five minutes. Sometimes there is no invoice. No receipt. No WhatsApp conversation. No written acknowledgement. Just an electronic alert and a handshake. That habit is becoming increasingly dangerous.
The modern Nigerian trader must understand a simple principle of law: it is not enough to have a transaction; you must be able to prove the transaction. An electronic transfer is important evidence, but the notification on your phone is not necessarily the complete evidential history of the transaction.
Suppose a customer transfers ₦500,000 to your account for five cartons of goods. You see the credit alert and hand over the goods. Later, the customer alleges that the transfer was made in error or disputes the transaction. What happens next?
The bank may investigate. Depending on the circumstances and the applicable banking procedures or instructions from competent authorities, restrictions or holds may be placed on funds or accounts. The mere fact that an account has been restricted, however, does not establish that the account holder committed fraud.
This distinction is important. A bank investigating a disputed transaction is one thing. A finding that a trader is a fraudster is quite another. The trader should therefore not panic, but neither should he sit down and do nothing. He should immediately gather the evidence of the transaction and communicate with the bank formally. If the dispute becomes serious or involves law enforcement, regulatory intervention or litigation, legal advice becomes prudent.
The law has moved with technology. The Evidence Act recognises electronic records as potentially admissible evidence. Section 84 deals with statements contained in documents produced by computers, subject to the statutory requirements for admissibility. The Evidence Act, as amended in 2023, also contains provisions dealing expressly with information in electronic form and electronic records.
What does that mean for the ordinary trader? It means that your WhatsApp conversation, electronic receipt, transaction record, invoice, email or other digital material may become relevant evidence if properly preserved and properly presented. But there is a crucial legal lesson here. Not every screenshot automatically wins a case.
Electronic evidence may be challenged as to its authenticity, source, integrity or admissibility. The fact that something appears on your phone does not mean that a court must automatically accept every assertion contained in it.
This is why proper record keeping matters. If a customer transfers money for goods, preserve the transaction reference. Keep the receipt. Keep the invoice. Record the goods supplied. Preserve the relevant WhatsApp conversation. Where appropriate, send a written confirmation of the transaction and retain the customer’s response.
You are creating a contemporaneous trail. And contemporaneous evidence is often far more useful than a person trying to reconstruct events from memory months later.
Consider the POS operator who gives a customer ₦200,000 in cash after receiving an electronic transfer. The customer walks away. The next day, there is a dispute. The POS operator now says, “But I gave him the cash.” The customer says, “I never received it.” Who is telling the truth? Perhaps the operator is. Perhaps the customer is. The court, investigator or bank cannot decide merely by looking at the operator’s face. This is why business records matter.
A receipt, transaction reference, CCTV footage where available, customer communication, identification details lawfully obtained, time of transaction and other contemporaneous records can help reconstruct what actually happened. The law does not reward the person who merely says, “I know what happened.” The law asks: Can you prove it?
There is another side to this discussion. Banks operate within a heavily regulated financial system. They have obligations concerning suspicious transactions, fraud prevention, customer protection and regulatory compliance. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s regulatory framework requires financial institutions to maintain appropriate mechanisms for dealing with complaints and fraud risks.
There are also circumstances in which Nigerian law permits restrictions on bank accounts pursuant to lawful processes. For example, the statutory framework under BOFIA recognises court supervised freezing of accounts in circumstances involving suspected criminal transactions. Therefore, it would be wrong to tell Nigerians that every account restriction is automatically unlawful. It would equally be wrong to suggest that every customer complaint establishes guilt.
The proper question is always: What is the legal basis for the restriction, what transaction is being disputed, what authority initiated it, and what remedy is available to the affected customer? That is where proper legal advice becomes valuable.
There is nothing sophisticated about the solution. If a customer pays by transfer, preserve the payment evidence. If the sale was negotiated through WhatsApp, preserve the conversation. If you issue invoices, keep copies. If goods are delivered, document delivery. If the customer collects the goods personally, obtain an appropriate acknowledgement where commercially reasonable. If you operate a POS business, maintain proper transaction records. And do not depend exclusively on one device.
A trader who keeps the only copy of his business records on a damaged or stolen telephone may discover, painfully, that evidence has disappeared with the phone. Back up important business records responsibly. This is not paranoia. It is ordinary commercial prudence.
There is a temptation, when an account is restricted, to immediately accuse the bank of stealing your money or accuse the customer of being a criminal. Be careful. Do not turn a commercial dispute into a defamation problem. Do not fabricate documents. Do not alter screenshots. Do not manufacture WhatsApp conversations. Do not create receipts after the dispute and pretend that they existed before it. Evidence must tell the truth. A cleverly manufactured document may appear to save a business today and destroy its owner’s credibility tomorrow.
The Nigerian businessman of yesterday could survive largely on trust, memory and a handshake. The Nigerian businessman of today needs something more. He needs records.
The woman selling clothes in Aba, the spare parts dealer in Nnewi, the POS operator in Ikorodu, the supermarket owner in Abuja and the young entrepreneur selling products online all need to understand the same principle. Documentation is now part of doing business.
Nigeria’s transition from cash to digital payments has brought enormous convenience. But convenience has created its own risks. The answer is not to return to the days of hiding money under mattresses. The answer is better commercial discipline. Trust your customer, but document the transaction.
That small habit may one day save your business.
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