In this audio, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Development Ronald Chitotela explains a bad joke he made yesterday evening, where he told journalists not to steal chicken.

The private sector organisers invited Chototela to officiate at the signing ceremony with an Egyptian company selling elite homes in Zambia, and about 10 urban housing units were sold at the event, but the occasion was not to pass without an elite joke against the not-so elite journalists.

“I hope chickens won’t go missing here because the media is fond of stealing chickens,” remarked Chitotela, leaving news reporters in shock.

Journalists did not take the remarks kindly and some approached the minister after the event to register their displeasure at the joke.

Chitotela told News! Diggers today saying the fact that he is minister doesn’t mean he is not allowed to joke with journalists.

“I was joking with Tom Njovu from ZNBC, you know he acted a movie on TV where he is stealing chickens and putting in the jacket, I am sure you have watched that,” Chitotela explained.

He said after noticing that some people did not get his joke, he asked the master of ceremonies, Lulu Haangala to help him explain it.

Chitotela added that he was a media friendly person and he did not intend to anger anybody but to tickle the ZNBC cameraman who is his tribal cousin.

Take a listen:

When contacted, Njovu confirmed that he always jokes with Chitotela.

“The joke was targeted at me, you know since that advert I made for Smooth Talk, whenever we meet he always says ‘you steal chickens’, but yesterday the way he put it…, he used the word media, so some people did not understand. But we always joke like that,” said Njovu.

Before joining ZNBC, Njovu was signed at Muvi TV as an actor where he earned his fame in the soap opera “Banja” under the character name “Limbikani”