KEEPING YOUR AGREEMENTS SAFE: LESSONS FROM MY GRANDFATHER’S FARM By Peter Agbor 
My late grandfather once shared with me a story that still burns in my mind like fresh palm wine on the tongue.
“My son,” he said, “what those people did to me was very painful.”
Here’s what happened.
He had rented out his farm for a one-year term. Two agreements were written. Both signed. Both witnessed. Simple, right?
But then came the twist.
The agreement was kept in the custody of his elder brother, a man already settled in life, married, and (supposedly) more responsible. My grandfather, still unmarried, trusted him.
Big mistake.
When the year was up, my grandfather approached the tenant:
“Will you renew?”
The man smiled, shook his head, and said:
“I still have six months left.”
Six months?
That was strange. Alien, even. But the tenant pulled out his own copy of the agreement and indeed, it boldly stated 1 year and 6 months.
Naturally, my grandfather turned to his brother for the original. But lo and behold… the brother had “lost it.”
And just like that, my grandfather lost the case before the community.
The tenant enjoyed six more months of sweat and soil — at my grandfather’s expense.
But the real dagger came later.
When the harvest promised to be bountiful, the same tenant crawled back, begging to rent the farm again for another six months. And in his desperation to win favor, he confessed:
It was my grandfather’s own brother who had doctored the deal. He took a lower rent in exchange for cash to build his house.
Betrayal wrapped in family blood.
My grandfather said that season broke him — not just financially, but emotionally. Hunger, anger, and regret filled his days. All because he trusted the wrong person, and because he had no control over his own written word.
The Lesson?
In law, and in life, it is not enough to put it in writing.
You must also guard the writing.
Agreements are only as strong as the paper they are kept on and the hands that hold them. Entrust them wrongly, and you may find yourself eating heartbreak instead of harvest.
Or as my grandfather would say:
“Never give your yam to a man who’s already roasting fire by the roadside.”
