Business Partnerships: Building Trust for Growth in Nigeria

Welcome back to Bashan Talks! Today, I want to talk about business partnerships: why they fail, why people don’t trust each other, and why almost everyone is trying to cheat instead of build. I have a personal experience I want to share—a painful lesson, but a powerful one. So stay with me.

The Trust Deficit in Nigerian Business

In Nigeria, suspicion is higher than hope. When people come together for business, the first instinct is not, “How can we build this together?” It’s “How can I outsmart the other person before they outsmart me?” Instead of long-term thinking, we are playing short-term chess with our future.

There are lots of people who have money, people who have common sense, people who have experience, but nothing happens because trust is missing. Sincerity is gone. Ego is in charge. Why is this killing growth?

To clearly understand, let me paint a simple picture: You have 10 people all trading rice, each with ₦100,000. They go to the same market, buy from the same suppliers, and compete against each other to buy the same thing. So they drive the price up for each other when buying. Then they come back and undercut each other to sell. They all make tiny profits or even losses.

But imagine if those 10 people put their money together. It comes to ₦1 million, and they go to the same market as one force. They will negotiate better, buy cheaper, and control the price instead of chasing it. That’s when you are truly in business. That’s how scale happens. Unfortunately, in many cases in Nigeria, it doesn’t happen because everybody wants to be “the guy alone,” even if they remain poor doing it.

My Personal Experience: A Painful Lesson

Now, let me tell you my own story, my experience in business. Someone got introduced to me; he had money but no idea about agribusiness. I suggested we combine resources to do a 13-ton truck of sesame seeds. I would handle the sourcing and operation, and he would bring half the money, which I believed was a fair deal. He agreed.

I started buying the goods with my team, giving him regular updates. Then it came time to get empty white bags for packaging. I usually get my bags from Kano, but he said he would send the empty bags this time from Lagos. I agreed.

When the bags arrived, I was shocked. He printed his own company name and personal mobile number boldly on every bag without telling me. This wasn’t a joke. It shows he was clearly trying to claim ownership or hijack customers from me, since I knew many reliable buyers of sesame seeds within and outside Nigeria better than he did. By the way, at that time, he had no sesame seed buying contact at all.

I called him, and he apologized, but deep down I knew he tried to play me. And guess what? It happened again.

I processed and packaged the goods, then sent them to his warehouse in Lagos for us to consider exporting, or if we got a good deal, we could sell locally to exporters. Immediately the goods arrived in Lagos, I traveled out of the country for a one-week engagement. To my surprise, just 3 days before my returning to Lagos, he called me to say he found a buyer while I was still abroad and mentioned that he would sell the goods before I returned. By the way, this was without my approval.

He gave me a fake market price. He mentioned that he had a good offer to sell the goods for ₦470,000 per ton to an Indian businessman. This guy was trying to cheat me twice! I hadn’t even asked for payment for my time, my experience, and my market knowledge.

I had to warn him seriously. When I came back, I proved to him that he was also being played by that same Indian buyer because I realized that he negotiated to sell to the Indian for ₦419,000 per ton, but he told me ₦470,000. The reason he was being played by the Indian is that they understand the market very well, and they know that ₦490,000 was below the market price at that time. But my partner was not aware of this market information.

I called some of my real buyers in his presence and sold the same goods for ₦520,000 per ton in minutes. He could have lost ₦50,000 per ton if I hadn’t stepped in. Do you see the foolishness? Instead of building something great together, some people are calculating how to steal before the business starts.

After all that, when I proved myself, this same guy came to tell me that people like me gave him hope in Nigeria. From that day, he started sending millions to me without questions because he now saw what sincerity, integrity, and a long-term mindset look like in business. However, it shouldn’t have taken that much stress. What if I was also the type to cheat him first? We would have destroyed a powerful business opportunity.

Building Together, Not Stealing

Let me say this from my heart: We can’t grow Nigeria, a great business, or our communities if we don’t fix the trust problem. Partnerships are powerful, but only if the people involved are sincere, humble, and focused on building, not stealing. Your partner is not your enemy. Greed, ego, and fear are the real enemies.

Let’s learn to work together, build together, and scale beyond what one person can do alone, because everybody doing small, small business forever will keep us poor. Together, we will win bigger.

Have you had any bad experience with business partners? I want to hear your story. Drop it in the comments. Let’s learn together. Like, subscribe, and share this video with someone who needs to hear the truth. Until next time, take it from me: Partnerships work only when people do. Goodbye for now.