Of minimum wage, tortoiseshell and Akpabio’s threat, by Hassan Gimba, anipr

“Unlike the stomach, the brain doesn’t alert you when it’s empty.” – Arabic proverb.

There are many tales about how the tortoise got its cracked back. One with various versions stands out. It is the one in which the tortoise had two geese as friends. In the Buddhist scriptures, the tortoise fell from the sky and split in two as the geese were taking it to their home in the Himalayas. According to the story, the geese held a stick in their beaks while the tortoise grasped it in its mouth. But while passing over a village, it opened its mouth to talk back to children below who were making fun of it.

There are many versions with minor variations translated into Persian, Syriac, Arabic, Italian, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.

In the one narrated by Chinua Achebe in “Things Fall Apart,” the tortoise persuaded different birds to give it a feather each to make it fly and accompany them to a feast high in the sky. But they retrieved their feathers when it tricked them into allowing it to eat all the food by assuming the name “All of you” and whenever the food servers announced that food presented was for “All of you,” it told its friends it was meant for it. It is the same version as that of the Swazi and the Kikuyu.

The Hausa version written by Bayero University Kano’s Professor Abdulkadir Dangambo is different. An abridged version goes thus: “One day, two geese who were friends with a tortoise were to travel and the tortoise begged them to go along with it. They objected because it had no wings. But after insisting, they came up with a plan. Each held the end of a stick while the tortoise held the middle and they flew, carrying it through the air. Over a village, the geese laughed over what they saw–a hare pursuing a goat–and when the tortoise opened its mouth to ask, it fell and shattered its back into pieces.”

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But the one I love the most is the one I have known since I was barely six. Our late mother told us about it. In those days, there were no televisions, computers (not to talk of laptops), or mobile phones. The modes of entertainment, information and education then were the radio and reading. No wonder the reading culture was high. But some nights we sat in semi-circles and stories were told to us by the good old woman under the illumination provided by the moonlight, electric bulbs or Tilley lamps (still remember them?). With the benefit of hindsight, all the stories were meant to make us morally sound people.

Her story was that while flying over a village, amazed at the sights, some people applauded the scenic beauty, friendship, and cooperation they had witnessed. Pride took over and in exultation, the tortoise opened its mouth to brag, and it fell, its shell breaking into pieces.

It is quite understandable for a human to beat his chest when he does something noble and gets applause. Sometimes, such applause propels one to exceed known limits, as in Muhammad Ali digging deep into a reservoir he was not aware of to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat or Usain Bolt breaking his world records over and over. But sometimes he can overreach himself and come a cropper. It even happened to Greek gods.

In Greek mythology, Icarus ignored his father Daedalus’s instructions not to fly too close to the sun. Giddy-headed from the exhilarating feeling of flight, he thought he could defy the limits set by his father, thereby equating himself with the god of the sun, Helios. He went on to fly too close to the sun, causing his wings made of wax to melt and he tumbled down into the sea and drowned.

If gods can get carried away by the ability to fly or tortoises to be high when clapped for because of a show worthy of any circus, it will not be a surprise if mortals behave as if they are on steroids to self-destruct because of brownie points.

This is why the Nigerian Senate should not be seen as a place for bloviators. Therefore, they should “be calming down”, about this minimum wage thing in the interest of the country. The teeming populace about to be thrown into the labour market because of the inability of employers to pay the minimum wage will never forgive them.

The lawmakers had passed a bill pegging the national minimum wage at ₦70,000. And happy with that wonderful piece of legislation, the President of the Senate said, “If you are a tailor and you employ additional hands, you cannot pay them below ₦70,000. If you are a mother with a newborn child and you want to hire a housemaid to look after your child, you cannot pay the person below the approved minimum wage.

“If you hire a driver or gateman, you cannot pay them below ₦70,000. It applies to all and sundry. So, I’m very delighted that this has been passed, and we now look forward to employers of labour improving on what has been set as a benchmark for all to follow.”

The problem with that statement is that many Nigerians who do not earn ₦70,000 a month have house helps, drivers, gatemen, etc., jobs that keep these employees and their dependants going. And believe it or not, their number surpasses the number of Nigerian civil servants.

Unlike the senators and other political office holders that the government pays the wages of their domestic aides, the employers of most of this category of workers pay them from their earnings, which are getting diminished daily by inflation and rising cost of living.

READ ALSO: N70,000 minimum wage applies to drivers, nannies, gatemen – Senate President

This will also affect small and medium-scale businesses, as many will fold up because how many tailors or shop owners can afford to pay that wage to their employees? And since it is now law, failure to comply can throw one into jail. Many employers would therefore have no recourse but to let their employees go and that will swell the ranks of the unemployed.

We must fear the impact the rise in unemployment will have on our productivity and our off-kilter economy.

Many do not have the mind to commit crimes, but survival is the first law of nature and, therefore, a basic human instinct. I fear that the recruitment base of bandits, kidnappers, terrorists, insurgents, money ritualists, and separatists will get a massive boost. I am not even talking about petty crimes.

The above scenario is the concern if Akpabio’s testament is anything to go by. As the SP, is he telling us that now every organisation/individual must pay the minimum wage irrespective of the number of their employees and that even seasonal and periodic workers and such staff referred to by him are included?

Hassan Gimba, publisher and editor-in-chief of Neptune Prime, is an associate member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.

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