You Signed the Agreement—But Did You Sign It Properly?

You Signed the Agreement—But Did You Sign It Properly?

Most contract disputes start with a badly signed agreement.

As lawyers, we spend a lot of time advising clients on what should go into their contracts—clauses, protections, risk allocation, exit rights and remedies. But many times, one of the most common and costly problems I see does not come from poorly drafted clauses. It comes from poorly executed documents. Even worse, many businesses often carry out commercial transactions on unexecuted contracts. Very often in contract disputes, the page you didn't sign may be the page you end up fighting over.

In Nigeria, a contract may be perfectly drafted and still become extremely difficult to enforce if the execution is questionable or if it was not executed in the first place. How do you convince a judge or anyone that the contract you are relying on is not a mischievous fabrication on your part? Execution is not a formality. It is part of what makes a document legally reliable. When a dispute arises, the first thing your lawyer and the court will look at is not how impressive the wording sounds, but whether the agreement can be safely relied upon as the document both parties truly adopted.

This is why signing should never be treated as a casual end-of-meeting exercise.

Key Points on Execution

Ensure the correct legal parties are stated and actually sign: This cannot be over emphasized because in practice, many contracts are usually left unsigned and parties only realise their error during dispute. If a company is a party, the execution must reflect that the company—not an individual in their personal capacity—is signing. If the other party is a business name, it must be signed by the owner and never the business name.

Confirm that the signatory has authority to bind the company: Under Nigerian company practice and corporate governance principles, execution without proper authority can expose the agreement to internal challenges and, in some cases, external disputes.

Do not treat witness details as an afterthought: Properly completed witness names, addresses and signatures help strengthen the evidential value of the document when it is produced in court.

Most importantly, sign or initial every page of the agreement: This point is often dismissed as excessive. It is not. Signing or initialling every page helps eliminate arguments that pages were substituted, removed, added later or never agreed to in the first place. In commercial disputes, especially where relationships have broken down badly, parties routinely challenge the integrity of the document itself. A fully signed or initialled agreement significantly weakens that line of attack.

Under the Nigerian Evidence Act 2011, documents relied upon in court must be shown to be authentic and properly connected to the parties who are said to have executed them.

Conclusion

For founders, executives and business owners, the practical takeaway is simple: execution is risk management. It is not administrative work. It is part of your legal strategy. If you are running a serious business, especially during high level transactions, you should be just as deliberate about how your agreements are signed as you are about what they contain. A well-drafted contract protects your interests. A properly executed contract protects your ability to enforce them.

At C. Egwu Law Firm, a significant part of our advisory work is helping clients tighten not just their contract drafting, but their execution processes, especially for investment documents, commercial partnerships, employment contracts and long-term service arrangements.