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There were enemies and then there were mtaa enemies who placed a ‘wanted’ on your mango head back in the day when freedom of movement was restricted by an ‘active wanted.’
Diplomacy was still in its Neanderthal stage! The ‘wanted’ was fleshed from films in which a villain was the ‘Most Wanted Person.’ But in mtaa za Nairobi the ‘wanted’ was mostly meted out by a rival gang in the hood.
The ‘wanted’ was spurred by either a fight that never ended or where one party employed unorthodox tactics like throwing mchanga on your rheumy eyes! Others were out of mtaa football matches where ‘rough game’ went on beyond the pitch.
Majengo’s dreaded Gwangi Football Club was very gifted at placing ‘wanted’ to residents of areas where they lost soccer matches. Majengo is where Gikomba market is and a ‘wanted’ meant being careful while shopping for mitumba in Gikomba lest a member of Gwangi Football Club singled you out as being from an area with an active ‘wanted’!
‘Wanted’ was also issued by schoolmates who waited outside the school gate for a session of ‘kufunga shule na wewe’ basically a fight to square out things. The ‘wanted’ was lifted after a harambee of bodily harm was unleashed after days of using long panya routes to skirt enemies who ‘wanted’ you and not necessarily to say hello!
Today kuwekea mtu ‘wanted’ followed by a beating can have you cooling government porridge for six months on assault charges!
