I would explain this with a case study.
Let’s say you are a gun seller and you legally sell guns.
Then someone you know — someone who has beef with your child — comes to you and says:
“I want to buy a gun.”
Would you sell it to them?
There’s a good chance you wouldn’t.
And why?
Because you know yourself that you are likely to be the target of what that person intends to do with it.
Now, let's bring that into tech.
As developers, designers, writers, marketers, or basically anyone who works online, we get approached with all kinds of gigs.
And sometimes the job itself looks completely normal.
Build a website.
Create an app.
Write some content.
Automate something.
Scrape some data.
Build a dashboard.
Nothing immediately screams “illegal.”
But sometimes, you know exactly what the client intends to use your work for.
And this is where I think we need to start asking better questions before accepting gigs.
Not every gig is worth the money.
You could be asked to:
- Build a fake website designed to deceive people.
- Create fake reviews or testimonials.
- Help someone impersonate another person or company.
- Build tools intended to steal information.
- Create fake documents or credentials.
- Help someone bypass systems they clearly aren't authorized to access.
- Produce work that is deliberately designed to scam people.
And then there are the grey areas.
The client might not explicitly tell you:
“Help me commit a crime.”
Instead, they'll give you a perfectly normal-looking requirement and leave out the part that tells you what they're actually trying to accomplish.
This is why I don't think the question should only be:
“Is this job legal?”
Sometimes you also need to ask:
“What exactly is my work going to be used for?”
Because saying “I was just hired to build it” doesn't automatically remove your responsibility to think about what you're helping someone accomplish.
And honestly, money can make this difficult.
Especially when you're starting out.
You see a client offering ₦300k, ₦500k, maybe ₦1m for something you could build in a few days and you're thinking:
“Omo, this is my chance.” 😂
But that's exactly when you need to slow down.
A quick payday can come with consequences that last much longer than the money.
And I'm not saying you need to investigate every client like the FBI before accepting a website project. 😂
Just pay attention to the obvious red flags.
If the client is asking you to deceive people, steal information, impersonate someone, bypass protections they clearly aren't authorized to bypass, or do something you already know is unlawful...
You probably shouldn't be the person building it.
Because there is a difference between:
“I don't know what they'll do with my work.”
and
“I know exactly what they're going to do with my work, and I'm doing it anyway because they're paying me.”
That difference matters.