The Dilemma of Legal Action: My Story of Choosing Peace Over Court

The way some people act and behave towards us can be so annoying to the point where we sue them to court, and for someone like me who doesn't really buy the idea of having unnecessary alterations with someone physically, I find myself at a crossroads of whether I should take legal action against a colleague who disregarded one agreement we had together and rather than apologise and state his reasons, instead he kept acting as though he's wise, which kind of annoys me the more.

On a normal day, I'd have sued him in court because, trust me, I felt hurt and cheated, and he even made me seem like a fool. When he ought to apologize, he is busy bragging that there's nothing I can do. But despite how angry I was, one singular constraint was what I considered, which made me refrain from taking legal action against him. I'm sure you'll be wondering what plays out between me and this person; if so, there's no need to do that because I'll be telling you all about it below.

So around 6 to 7 years ago, I was working as a teacher in a school in Yobe State, which is located in the north-eastern part of the country. This is a territory mostly dominated by Muslims, and we, the Christians in that part of the country, are very minimal. The school itself only has 3 Christian teachers, while all the other 26 teachers and staff are all Muslim.

Please take note that I don't have any issues with any religion; I'm only stating these details based on the point I'll be making at the end of my story.

Now among we the Christian teachers in that school, one of them approached me about his plans of traveling down to his hometown in Enugu for a program and that due to the stress of the journey and meetings with his family after a long time, he won't be able to come about within a few weeks, so he gave me an offer that, as he doesn't want to lose his job in that school, I should please help him teach all of his classes and subjects throughout the time he'd be away and that at the end of the month we'll split his salary into 50/50.

After telling me this, I told him there's no problem that I can help me with that, but I asked him to inform the director of the school about his plans, which he did, and the director reached out to me to be sure I'd be doing his work throughout the time this colleague of mine would be away, and I told him it's true, and so he traveled, and I started teaching all of us classes alongside mine.

These continue for the next 7 weeks. He didn't come back until about a month and a half, and when he came back, I welcomed him, and he took over his classes while I focused on mine alone. When the end of the month came, as someone who has helped him work for a month and a half, I'd already made calculations and knew how much I'm supposed to receive from him.

For that duration, I'm supposed to be paid 30 thousand naira for the first month, which is half of his salary, and the other half monthly. I was expecting 15 thousand naira, making a total of 45 thousand naira he's supposed to pay me, but when he received his salary and I inquired about my share based on our agreement, he requested my account details, only for me to check my bank, and I realized he only sent me 5 thousand naira.

I was supposed to be furious, but I kept my cool and approached him with the hope that he probably made a mistake, and it was then that he told me that he couldn't pay me that much for what I did and that what he sent was fair enough. Hearing that, I was burning with anger and just walked out of him to sit somewhere and think straight. It was while I was thinking that I realized we didn't write any agreement, so I've got nothing to hold against him. The only thing we told the director was that I'd help him with his classes; we didn't inform him about the monetary agreement.

Furious with his words and how dumb I was for not having any evidence to prove that we did have such agreements, I immediately devised a plan to go back to him and record our conversation as I try to make him admit our initial agreement, so I'll have it recorded and an evidence to help me get that money from him, as I can easily present that to the director, so he'll listen and withhold the guy's next salary.

With that, I went to him, and my plan worked exactly the way I wanted it. In fact, I knew those words I'd recorded would get me back my money, but what I didn't anticipate was that while I was confronting him, he'd raise his voice, and I'd do the same to the point where we were invited by the director to settle whatever was going on between us. In the director's office, he let us know that we're on school premises and can't be doing so. He also said he's not pleased with how we, the Christian teachers, are using our actions to tarnish the image of the school, citing examples of how none of the Muslim teachers has ever gotten involved in such.

With all that he said, I just think within myself that this man doesn't even know what transpired between us, and he's already saying this: if he were to find out the actual reason, then I'd probably be tarnishing not just my colleague image but the image of Christians as people who can't be trusted to stick with their word.

So with that realization and thought within myself, I decided to let the case go and not take any action, because I had initially made up my mind that if I told the director about what happened and he didn't handle the case well, then I'd take the case to court, but with my new perspective, I just apologized to the director, told him I'm sorry, and nothing of the sort would happen again, after which I sent back the five thousand naira the guy sent to me.

Because I'd rather not take anything than be paid such a ridiculous amount for my efforts, I was only trying to help him, and he paid me back with disappointment, which hurt me, and from then on, I've become more skeptical about going into a deal with someone. If we don't have a written agreement, then I might not agree to help, because once bitten, they say, is twice shy.

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Thanks so much for your time. I hope you enjoyed the read. Do have a wonderful day and stay blessed.

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