Two Super Search clues here. RH 9.0 and *** missing separator.

Take a look at make 'missing separator' error when building CPAN modules on RedHat 8/9 and Re: Time::Hires installation under RH Linux 9.0 for explainations.
Short form is that you need to edit your /etc/sysconfig/i18n file and change the line that looks like:
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
to:
LANG="en_US"

FWIW my /etc/sysconfig/i18n looks like:

LANG="en_US"
SUPPORTED="en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en"
SYSFONT="latarcyrheb-sun16"
[download]

HTH
Daeve