The messages show delivered but not read. The calls ring out. The last update was six weeks ago, you've already paid a deposit, and your website is either half-finished or sitting there with someone else's placeholder text on it.
This happens often enough in Nigeria that there's a standard playbook for it. Here it is.
First, be fair for 48 hours
Before you assume the worst, rule out the ordinary explanations. Solo developers get sick, travel, lose a laptop, or get buried in another client's launch. A surprising number of "disappearances" are one dead phone and a lost SIM.
Send one clear message on every channel you have — WhatsApp, email, phone, and any shared group — with a specific deadline: "I need an update by Friday, otherwise I'll assume you're no longer working on this and make other arrangements."
Keep a record. If this ends badly, that message becomes your evidence that you gave reasonable notice.
Then secure the three things that matter
Here's the part most business owners get wrong: your website is not one thing. It's three separate things, often held in three different places, and losing any one of them hurts differently.
Your domain name. This is the most important and the hardest to replace. Everything else can be rebuilt; your domain is who you are online. If it lapses, anyone can register it.
Your hosting. The server where the files live. Paid monthly or yearly, usually to a company like Whogohost, Qservers, DomainKing, or a foreign host.
Your files and database. The actual site — the code, the images, the products, the customer records.
Work out which of these you control right now, before you do anything else.
How to find out what you actually control
For the domain: run a WHOIS lookup on your domain. For a .com, any WHOIS tool shows you the registrar. For a .com.ng or .ng, check through NiRA's lookup. You're looking for two things — which company the domain is registered with, and whose name and email are on it. If the registrant email is your developer's rather than yours, that's the problem you solve first.
For hosting: check your bank statements and email for a receipt. If you've ever paid a hosting company directly, you have an account, and the "forgot password" flow on their site will get you in.
For files: if you have hosting access, you have your files. Log into cPanel, use the backup tool, and download a full backup — files and database together. Do this today, not next week.
If every single one of those comes back in your developer's name, with their email, paid from their account, then you don't own your website. You've been renting it without knowing. That's a bigger problem than a missed deadline, and it's worth reading who actually owns your website and domain next.
Renew anything close to expiring
If your domain expires during this standoff, you can lose it. Domains go through a grace period, then a redemption period where recovery costs several times the normal renewal, and then they drop and anyone can take them — including people who watch for expiring Nigerian business domains specifically.
If you can access the registrar, renew now, even for one year. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.
What you can do without them
More than you'd think.
- If you have hosting access, a new developer can work on the site immediately.
- If you have the domain, you can point it at a new site whenever you're ready.
- If you have a recent backup, you own the work you paid for, even if the relationship is finished.
What you genuinely cannot do without them is get access to accounts registered in their personal name. That usually means going through the provider's account-recovery process with proof of your business identity — CAC documents, payment receipts, matching business email. It works more often than people expect, but it takes time, which is why you start it early.
When to stop waiting
Cut your losses when the cost of waiting exceeds the cost of restarting. In practice that's usually when:
- Two weeks have passed with no substantive response.
- The site is offline and your customers are noticing.
- You're being asked for more money before anything new is delivered.
- The domain or hosting is about to expire and they hold the login.
A deposit you've already paid is gone whether you wait another month or not. Don't let a sunk cost hold your business offline.
What recovery usually costs
It depends entirely on what you managed to keep.
If you have the domain and a backup, a new developer picks it up and finishes it — cheaper than starting over. If you have the domain but nothing else, you're rebuilding the site but keeping your address and most of your search rankings. If you have none of it, you're starting from zero on a new domain, which is the expensive outcome and the reason this article exists.
We take over abandoned projects regularly, including sites we didn't build. The first conversation is free and often ends with us telling you that you're in better shape than you thought.
Getting it moving again
If you're stuck mid-project, tell us what happened and what access you still have. We'll tell you honestly what's recoverable, what isn't, and what it costs to finish — as one fixed price, agreed before anything starts. Our pricing is published, so you'll know before you call whether we're in your range.
And once you're back up, put hosting and maintenance with someone whose actual job it is to answer. The whole point is that this never happens to you twice.
Have a project in mind?
Get a fixed quote from a Port Harcourt team.