Being Legal or Moral

The rain beat relentlessly against the windscreen as my driver guided the car through Ikeja and towards the main Ibadan highway. Lagos had received plenty of rain that month, but this downpour felt unusually intense. Fortunately, the traffic had thinned, and we expected to reach the client’s office within fifteen minutes.

The meeting ahead was important. A federally funded initiative was seeking a complete automation solution, and we believed our concept matched its needs. If the presentation went well, it could take us close to closing the deal.

My colleague sat beside me, unusually quiet. At the time, I assumed he was worried about the presentation. Looking back, I suspect he understood that the real test would not be technical. It would test how far we were willing to bend our moral judgement while remaining, at least outwardly, within the law.

Something about the meeting had troubled me from the beginning.

Although the project was federally funded, no government representative was expected to attend, and the evaluation panel included no technical expert. The proposed solution was large and strategically significant, requiring careful assessment of licensing, integration, support, and long-term ownership. Yet the meeting appeared surprisingly informal.

The pieces did not fit.

I had questioned my colleague repeatedly, but he could offer no convincing explanation. Part of me wanted to refuse to attend. Yet I knew that developing markets often operate through relationships, incomplete information, and unusual business structures. I reserved judgement.

Our car entered the client’s premises. We hurried through the rain towards reception. A young receptionist welcomed us warmly, guided us to the conference room, and helped arrange the projector. Her preparedness made the situation even more puzzling.

My thoughts were interrupted by a deep, commanding voice.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wagh. You are welcome.”

I turned and saw a broad, imposing man standing behind me. What startled me was that he knew my name. This was my first interaction with him; until then, my colleague had handled the opportunity almost entirely.

He noticed my surprise, smiled, and motioned for me to sit.

“I am Kalo, and I own this business initiative. Thank you for coming. Let us begin with the demonstration.”

His body language made the hierarchy unmistakable. He was in control.

After brief introductions, we began the presentation. The demonstration went smoothly. The panel’s questions revolved around two concerns: Would the system deliver at least seventy per cent of what had been promised? Could it be upgraded after a year?

These were reasonable questions, but not enough for a major technology investment. There was little discussion of security, implementation risk, data migration, training, maintenance, or governance.

Then Kalo ended the meeting abruptly.

“Thank you, everyone. Please excuse us. I would like to discuss the commercials with Mr. Wagh.”

The five team members left immediately.

Once we were alone, he leaned forward. “Mr. Wagh, we need this solution for under fifty thousand dollars. The end customer is prepared to pay no more than seventy thousand. I hope you understand. Tell me your thoughts.”

In that moment, everything became clear.

The end customer wanted us to work through a trusted intermediary. The absence of technical decision-makers, the urgency, the narrow questions, and the speed with which we moved to pricing suddenly made sense. The project appeared to have been structured around a predetermined margin rather than the quality of the final solution.

After more than two decades in business, I knew such arrangements. What surprised me was the directness.

I responded carefully. “Sir, reducing our price to that level may not be possible because the solution involves licensing and other non-negotiable costs. We can certainly explore a reasonable discount.”

He replied without hesitation. “I am willing to consider a solution without the licensing constraints, but the requirements must still be met. We have no time.”

His mandate was unmistakable: price, margin, and timeline were fixed. Quality, licensing, and sustainability were flexible.

I told him I would review the options and respond the following day. We agreed on the next steps and left.

By then, the rain had weakened. Inside my mind, however, a storm had begun.

The issue was not simply whether the arrangement could be presented as legal. The deeper question was whether it was right.

A business can remain technically within the law while violating its purpose. Documents can be prepared, committees formed, quotations collected, and approvals signed. Everything may appear compliant on paper. Yet if the process protects private interests rather than public value, legality becomes a mask.

This tension appears far beyond government contracts.

Consider a retailer advertising a “50% discount” after quietly increasing the original price. The offer may exploit weak pricing rules, but it misleads the customer. A clothing store might sell an ordinary fabric without openly lying, while allowing a buyer to assume it is premium. No false statement is made, yet the customer’s limited knowledge is exploited.

A company may create a return policy filled with exclusions in tiny print. The conditions may be legally valid, but morally they may be designed to defeat genuine complaints. A digital service may obtain consent through a long and confusing privacy notice. The user technically agrees, but few people understand what they have accepted.

Legality often defines the minimum standard. Morality asks a harder question: What effect will our decision have on another person?

Human behaviour makes this distinction uncomfortable. We are skilled at justifying actions that benefit us. When money, status, targets, or survival are involved, the mind produces convenient explanations:

“Everyone does it.”

“It is not illegal.”

“The customer agreed.”

“This is how the market works.”

“If we refuse, someone else will accept.”

Such statements reduce discomfort, but they do not remove responsibility.

Unethical cultures rarely begin with dramatic wrongdoing. They usually begin with small compromises. A manager asks an employee to adjust a number “just this once.” A salesperson hides a product limitation because the monthly target is under pressure. A buyer accepts an expensive gift from a supplier and insists that it has not influenced his judgement. Gradually, what once felt uncomfortable becomes normal.

Social life works similarly. People remain silent when a colleague is mistreated because speaking up may affect their position. A family defends an unfair custom because it is traditional. A group excludes someone without breaking any formal rule, while still causing deep harm. The absence of illegality does not guarantee fairness.

This is why morality cannot be outsourced entirely to the law.

Laws are necessary. They create boundaries and systems of accountability. But they are written, interpreted, and enforced by human beings. They may contain loopholes, lag behind technology, or reflect powerful interests. Political donations, aggressive tax avoidance, exploitative contracts, hidden charges, and misleading advertising may occupy legal grey areas while remaining morally questionable.

A useful test is simple:

Would I be comfortable if the full truth of this decision were visible to everyone affected by it?

Would the customer still buy if the limitations were explained clearly? Would the employee still agree if the consequences were fully understood? Would the public accept the project if its pricing structure and private margins were openly disclosed? Would I defend the same practice if I were on the receiving end?

In Kalo’s case, the proposed arrangement risked sacrificing long-term value for short-term gain. A weaker system might still be installed and formally accepted, but the real costs would appear later: failed performance, expensive upgrades, frustrated users, wasted public money, and loss of trust.

Profit itself was not the problem. Business must make money to survive. The moral problem begins when private profit depends on reducing value for an uninformed customer or shifting hidden costs to somebody else. Kalo could have earned a fair margin without compromising the solution.

As our car entered Surulere Street, the clouds began to clear. My own thoughts also settled.

Walking away from the opportunity could carry a commercial cost. Accepting it, however, would carry a deeper cost. It would make us participants in a decision we could not defend honestly.

Businesses are often encouraged to be aggressive, practical, and results-driven. But credibility is built not only by the deals we win. It is also built by the compromises we refuse. The law tells us what we are permitted to do. Morality asks what we ought to do.

When the two do not fully overlap, character is revealed by the choice we make. We all have to Think Inward!