In episode five of Judging Matters, Justice Olusola Williams and our counselor, Ebuka Obi-Uchendu dealt with two similar cases. Both cases were about people in the clothing business, and the issue of verbal agreements came up again.
One of the major lessons from this show has been ensuring that contracts and agreements are written and properly kept.
Case One
On June 20, 2019, David had paid N190,000 to Sunday for the purchase of 100 pairs of female footwear from China. After several scrutinies by Ebuka, Sunday alleged that for about a year his contact in China had been unreachable, and he had transferred the money to China for the delivery of the shoes.
On December 3, 2019, Sunday made a refund of N90,000 to David with a verbal agreement to pay up the remaining N100,000 but has now defaulted. Maybe Ebuka and the entire courtroom just did not believe Sunday had sent the money to China, so Ebuka asked Sunday for the evidence of transfer, after which Sunday told the court that he trusted his partners and he does not ask for receipts, he goes to the bank to make the transfer.
This left us with the question, “how do you effect a banking transaction from a banking hall and not have any evidence of payment?” David is currently having challenges with his business and is infuriated that Sunday is requesting to pay his N100,000 debt at the end of the year 2020.
Justice Olusola Williams affirmed that Sunday would have to pay the money, and ruled in favour of David in the sum of N100,000.
Case two
Precious Enebeli and Efe Emadu had been business partners since 2018.
Precious sells wholesales t-shirts and also supplies to boutiques and other retailers. The business had been founded on trust, hence the verbal agreements between both partners, but in 2019 they decided to make it official.
Efe owns a boutique. She pays in cash, and Precious supplies her with t-shirts, but after the official agreements, Efe began to collect clothes on credit with a promise to pay later. In April 2019, Precious had supplied 90 t-shirts worth N270,000 to Efe, with an agreement to receive N270,000 after 31 days.
In May 2019 Efe paid N170,000 to Precious, and then told her she had exceeded her daily transfer limit, so she was going to balance up the N100,000 the next day. After a few probes by counsellor Ebuka, Efe admitted that she lied to Precious that she did the bank transfer, and the reason why Precious had not gotten the alert was probably bank network issues.
Efe continued that the reason why she did not pay the balance was that her customers complained about the quality of the clothes and did not pay her as well. She didn’t mention this to Precious. After a series of arguments in November 2019, Precious went ahead to remove some clothes from Efe’s shop to express her displeasure. Efe said that she was supposed to sell those clothes to make some money to pay for her child’s school fees and also pay Precious. However, she was unable to do so, as the customers were no longer interested in the clothes as at the time Precious returned them three days after.
This case seemed like a joke to Ebuka as he wondered why Efe had lied, and Efe responded, “you know in business you need that little lie to keep it moving”. Ebuka told Efe that it was almost annoying listening to her, as nothing she said sounded real to the entire courtroom, making it extremely difficult to believe anything she said.
Justice Olusola Williams’ ruling reinforced that Efe owed Precious the sum of N100,000 and she had to pay it.
Want to learn more about life lessons? Then don’t miss the next episode of Judging Matters Mondays on Africa Magic Showcase channel 151 at 6:00 pm and catch the repeat episode on the same channel on Wednesday at 10:00 pm. Stay tuned to Africa Magic for the finest entertainment the continent has to offer and if you aren’t already watching, make sure you get your DStv subscription asap!
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