by Tolu Omoyeni

On Twitter Nigeria, the bants never end. Someone posts a tweet and everyone else rides on it to create conversations that lasts for days and the varying perspectives you’ll see will have you oohing and aahing. As President Buhari has not given tweeters anything to discuss in the past one day, everyone decided to jump on the 200k salary topic.

A group of tweeters believe a N200,000 salary earner is poor, considering how expensive things are in the country right now. Not only is such person poor, he should not be thinking about settling down for marriage (Note that, it’s a ‘he’). A faction of the ladies on Twitter have outrightly declared that they will not marry a man who earns less than 200k in a month. They don’t mind waiting for years before that man comes; they tell us that we should know how expensive apartments are in Lekki and environs. 200k monthly salary will not even pay the rent not to talk of buy a refrigerator.

The opposing faction, the association of no-chill Twitter, are strongly against this “ridiculous” assertion. Haba! In a country like Nigeria where most young people don’t earn more than 70k in real life (though they show off wads of cash on social media), how can 200k be a defining factor for marriage or anything at that?!

According to popular tweets, the 200k salary proponents have been grouped into these categories:

1. Ladies that have never worked for anything in their lives and still get allowances from daddy.
2. Ladies that earn N19,800, NYSC allowee but want to place all their burden on a big boy.
3. Ladies that advertise their business on Twitter in this manner “Pls RT, my customer might be on your TL”. They don’t have real jobs, they sell chin-chin on Twitter but like good things.

Bants aside, what is the ideal amount a man or woman should earn before they decide to settle down in marriage? There are no right or wrong answers to this question. The age old advice is to cut your coat according to your cloth, it’s still applicable in circumstances like this.

Back to bants, while these ones are wailing about 200k salary, minimum wage in Nigeria is still 18k and there’s Baba Sunday, the security guy who earns 20k and runs a family of 6. Be like Baba Sunday. Or maybe not.

Some angry tweeters have advised ladies who cannot cope with a man who earns less than 100k to marry themselves. Y’all need to calm down. Someone cannot even play with you.

Another set of determined male tweeters have said they will not marry until they own a house and two cars! Cool stuff.

Some have taken it to the streets, they say if you think 200k can cover clothing, shelter, feeding and bills, you might need to check into a psychiatric home. We believe it’s not that serious. No vex!

The wise ones have advised other tweeters to stay in their lanes. Don’t move to girls who spend millions on education, they say. They’re the types who expect 200k+ salary.

The bants have not ended and we’re absolutely enjoying it. We’ll keep you posted if the 200k salary conversation takes a new turn, until then…

Isime Esene