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| Anayo Nwosu |
There
was a period in time when turtles made money from transporting smaller animals
from Ose Onitsha across the River Niger to Asaba for a fee. Turtle was not the
only animal involved in the transportation business. Dogs, docks and crocodiles
also engaged in the business.
On one
faithful afternoon, the scorpion approached the turtle complaining that other
animals had refused to carry him on their back across the Niger river based on
unfounded rumours that he was ungrateful, unreasonable and poisonous. But
turtle asked the scorpion if it was true that he, the scorpion stung to death
his clients, neighbours and even someone that helps him when he was in need. He
denied it.
He
then appealed to the turtle to give him a trial which would also help to dispel
many rumours about him and help show other transporters that he was innocent of
the offence he was being accused of. The turtle looked at sobered scorpion with
pity and asked him to mount on his back and charged him nothing. The turtle was
emotional. He failed to investigate the hint on the bad reputation or character
of his innocent appearing customer. That negated his training.
Midway
inside the river, the turtle shouted at his passenger “bia turtle what did you
just do to me? You stung me?” Then the scorpion answered, “I’m so sorry, I felt
a little turbulence as we were moving and I couldn’t hold myself. I’m sorry my
brother. You know that stinging is in my nature. I’m so sorry”. Being that the
poison of the scorpion is paralytic and lethal to small animals, turtle could
hardly hear his passenger’s response and apology before he suffered a seizure
and started sinking. But the scorpion held on to a floating dry wood in the
river. The wood by sheer luck sailed on the river’s waves and got hooked to the
shrub on the Asaba end of the River Niger.
What a
might God scorpion serves! He called his children and friends for merriment or
what humans call survival party. Scorpion used the opportunity to lambast the
useless turtle who he accused of inexperience in ferry business and who
conspired with some transporters to throw him into the river to go and die. But
he never told anyone that he had stung his benefactor that turtle didn’t ask or
collect transport fare from him.
Fortuitously,
a fisherman was sailing near the site of the accident. He had cast his net into
the water and caught some fish and a turtle. When he got to the Asaba shore, he
separated his catch and threw away the turtle. He didn’t need it. He was only
interested in the fish. Lying on the sand under the healing sun, the turtle
recovered from the blood poisoning caused by the scorpion stings. He quietly
swam back to Ose Onitsha to a warm embrace of his wife and children.
Fearing
that the truth someday would be told or fearing the backlash, scorpion engaged
and paid mosquitoes, houseflies and tsetse flies to tell everyone and everybody
of how dangerous a transporter the turtle has been. He even accused the turtle
of kidnap; that he never wanted to engage on any Onitsha-Asaba trip.
Dear
young marketing and sales professional, tighten your seatbelt. At one point in
your carrier, as a turtle, you will come across many scorpions. Don’t deal with
any client that has an acrimonious and wicked reputation. Reputation is the
indication of character. Once you suspect or hear that a client is duplicitous,
please flee! Don’t even think of mitigating the risk. A perfume doesn’t offer a
permanent solution for a putrefying faeces of an indigenous cow. Just flee!
Resist
the tempting desire to carry a duplicitous character in your books. They could
go to any extent to down you. They have no scruples. They have contacts to
purveyors of the axis of evil. When a sales and marketing professional ignores
the character defect in seemingly big clients, all he has worked for in his
life might be sunk into the river and he might not be as lucky as the turtle.
By
Anayo Nwosu
anayonwosu@icloud.com
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