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Just the other day, some crazy folks in Sonko’s office issued an unfortunate and ill-timed edict that a tax would henceforth be levied on traders importing chicken into Nairobi.

My ageing memory fails me on account of my thinning hair, largely as a direct result of global warming, but I recall a levy of Sh25 per bird. Holy Moses!

Honestly, how callous can some folks be? Tax on chicken? In a town (I hear it is a city) harbouring so many avid chicken eaters?

I mean you have to be chicken-hearted to pull such pranks on bird lovers who keep the city going by devouring thousands of kuku every single day.

While we are on the subject, chicken is best eaten as stew, spiced with a few additives to make the gravy, or soup as we have generally referred to it over the years, a tad thick.

You are best advised to eat it with ugali, hot and steaming. Here is how: You grab a handful of sima, roll it in your hand into a rugby ball-like mound, use your thumb to fashion a hole for scooping the gravy.

This I learnt almost 20 years ago, as a senior parliamentary reporter. Hungry colleagues and I would head to Shauri Moyo for lunch. Our favourite destination was Mama Baby’s, who knew all of us by name. Here, you ate ugali with chicken. If you fancied some gravy to oil your throat enough for the ugali to just slide down, you got liver soup.

Hungrier chaps asked for some “kitoweo saucer”, a few extra pieces of meat. You got some tripe, sorry, matumbo to help finish your remaining piece of ugali. 

Yield little

In the end, you sampled a buffet of sorts; that is, a little of almost everything.

Similarly, thousands of folks, unrelated to myself, devour tens of thousands of these birds daily. The more upper-class blokes talk of tikka, tandoori or whatever, which is just kuku that was brought up and served in a slightly better neighbourhood, but kuku all the same.

So, how could a county government penpusher wake up one sad day and announce a tax on every kuku being brought into the city? What did this bloke have in mind?

Can it really get worse for an urbanite? You see, my daily fare is matumbo, which has become something of a staple. I compliment it with succulent pieces of mutura at Njoro’s joint in my hood. 

But when good fortune comes calling, as when I get a much-coveted pay rise once a decade, I graduate to eating chicken, whose bones I pick at with meticulous relish. Yes, I work on even those thin ribs that test your patience to the limit, with much labour yielding little.

Any agent of the devil making it harder for me to occasionally dabble in this unprecedented luxury must rank up there with one Adolf Hitler as a most heartless chap. Ashindwe!

Lest you think that other variety of birds that are fed on chemicals are a solution, they are not. It is teenagers who prefer them. You know the broiler-type, rolled and grilled as curious passers-by gawk from fast food joint windows?

The chicken Yours Truly calls finger-licking learns early to fend for itself, chasing after insects and feeding on leftover sukuma wiki and watered down ugali.

In the process, they develop tough legs, which do not soften even after boiling. Your teeth need to be sturdy to tear at these. Even the cartilage, the cushion around joints, is tough.

The village kuku comes with double benefit: you get to drink its soup (after the boiling) and eat the real kuku nyama. Hapo sasa!

Celebrate  news

But just as I was digesting (pun unintended) this is really bad news, someone at County Hall saw the senselessness of such a tax and promptly had it withdrawn. Phew!

To celebrate this good news, I bought some chicken samosa, to ensure those entrepreneurs who “import” kuku into Nairobi continue to earn from their toil. By the way, do they use kienyeji kuku or broiler to make the samosa?

Meanwhile, I owe the bloke who withdrew that thoughtless order a drink, at a venue of his choice. Was it Sonko who acted? Either way, the offer stands. I will take him to those joints where “Happy Hour” is quickly checked by a caveat: “Offer valid while stocks last”. Are you with me?Have a chicken-hearted,  free week, folks! – The writer is Special Projects Editor, People Daily