Taking the phone is one of the commonest things that happens, and it is usually treated as an argument about a phone. It is not. It is the removal of your only private line to everybody outside the house, and frequently it is the last thing that happens before something worse.
Two situations, and they need different answers: it has just happened, or it might.
If it has just happened
Do not fight for it. A physical struggle over a phone is one of the most common ways women are seriously hurt, and the phone is replaceable.
Assume he now has access to everything on it. Messages, photographs, your browsing, your contacts, your location history, and — most importantly — the ability to reset the passwords on anything that recovers through that number or that email.
Get to another device as soon as you safely can. A neighbour’s, a friend’s, a business centre, a shop. Then, in this order:
- Change your email password first. Everything else resets through it. This is the single most important step and doing it second is doing it too late.
- Change the recovery phone number and recovery email on that account. If they still point at the phone he holds, the new password achieves nothing.
- Sign out all other devices on the email, and on any messaging and social accounts. Every service has this, usually under security or active sessions.
- Change your banking access and tell the bank the number has been compromised.
- Turn off location sharing and remove any device you do not recognise from your accounts.
- Tell the people who matter that messages from that number may not be from you. This happens more than people expect.
- Report the SIM lost to your network and get it blocked, so it cannot receive your verification codes.
If you cannot do all of that, do the first two. They cover most of the damage.
Getting a number back
A SIM registered to your NIN can generally be replaced by you at a network office with identification, and that matters because your number is the recovery route for everything.
Where the line is registered in his name, you may not be able to recover it, which is worth knowing now rather than discovering later. If your main number is registered to him, that is a reason to get one of your own registered to you, quietly, before anything happens.
What he can see if it comes back
A phone taken and returned should be treated as a phone that may now be monitored. It is very easy to install something in twenty minutes, and cheap software marketed for exactly this is widely available.
Signs worth noticing: the battery going much faster than it did, the handset warm when idle, unfamiliar apps, settings that have changed, or him knowing things he should not. How to check a device properly sets out what to look for and what to change.
If you cannot be sure, do not use it for anything that matters. Keep it, keep using it for ordinary things, and do the important things elsewhere. A phone he believes he can see is more useful to you than one he knows you have abandoned.
Arranging things now, before it happens
This is the part worth doing today, because it turns a crisis into an inconvenience.
- Memorise two numbers. 112, and one person. Everything else is in a device you may not have.
- Write down the numbers that matter and keep the list somewhere outside the house.
- Have a second way to be contacted — a neighbour’s phone, a work extension, a friend who will pass a message.
- Set up an email account he does not know exists, on a device he does not control, with a password unlike any you already use. This is the anchor for everything else.
- Take your recovery details off the phone he can reach. Recovery numbers and recovery emails are the whole ballgame.
- Turn off message previews on the lock screen, so a message is not readable without unlocking.
- Do not save our number under anything meaningful. An ordinary woman’s name works.
- Keep photographs of your documents somewhere other than the phone’s gallery, and check whether the gallery backs up automatically to an account he can see. It usually does.
- Consider a cheap second handset kept outside the house — with a friend, at work, at your place of worship. It does not need credit to reach 112.
When it is part of the pattern
Taking a phone is rarely isolated. It usually sits alongside checking messages, demanding passwords, timing calls, objecting to particular contacts, and knowing where you have been.
Where that is happening, the phone is not the problem, it is the visible part of it. How this works in general covers the rest, including tracking, accounts and shared devices.
Confiscating a phone can also form part of a pattern of controlling behaviour that Nigerian law recognises, particularly where it is combined with preventing somebody from leaving the house or contacting their family. It is worth writing down each time it happens, with the date and how long it lasted. How to keep that record is set out separately.
If you have no phone at all
People manage without one and it is worth knowing the routes: a borrowed handset for a single call, a message sent from a shop counter, an email from a business centre, or a written note handed to a clinician, a teacher or a pharmacist.
The article on reaching help with no privacy is written for exactly this, including what to say when you only get thirty seconds.
Questions people ask
He has taken my phone. What is the very first thing?
Change your email password from another device, then change the recovery phone number and recovery email on that account. Everything else resets through the email, and a new password is useless if recovery still points at the phone he holds.
Should I try to get it back?
Not by struggling for it. A physical fight over a phone is one of the commonest ways women are badly hurt, and the handset is replaceable.
He gave it back. Is it safe to use?
Treat it as possibly monitored — twenty minutes is enough to install something. Keep using it for ordinary things and do anything that matters elsewhere. A phone he thinks he can see is more useful to you than one he knows you have abandoned.
The line is registered in his name. Can I get the number back?
Often not, which is worth knowing now rather than later. If your main number is registered to him, get one of your own registered to your NIN quietly, before anything happens.
What should I do today, before anything happens?
Memorise 112 and one person’s number, set up an email account he does not know about on a device he does not control, and move your recovery details off any phone he can reach.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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