Tendai Ruben Mbofana
The messages lighting up my phone are a haunting testament to the tragedy of modern Zimbabwe.
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Day after day, I receive pleas from the desperate: a widow struggling to house five children on a pittance, students unable to pay fees, farmers watching their crops wither for lack of inputs, and families mourning loved ones they could not afford to save.
They all share one thing in common—they believe they have finally found the contact details of the “philanthropist” Wicknell Chivayo.
When I once asked a sender where they obtained my number, the reply was a chillingly vague “the internet.”
This mistaken identity has provided me with a voyeuristic, yet deeply unsettling, window into the soul of a nation pushed to the precipice of survival.
Zimbabweans are suffering; of that, there is no doubt.
But what is truly nauseating is that they have been forced to beg for crumbs from the very table of those who helped steal the loaf.
There is a profound irony in watching a population, decimated by systemic corruption and the collapse of public institutions, prostrate themselves before the beneficiaries of that very decay.
Let us be clear: individuals like Chivayo are not philanthropists—not even by the wildest stretch of a desperate imagination.
They are the quintessential products of a broken system, men who have acquired vast, obscene wealth through an intricate web of patronage and proximity to power.
Their riches are not the fruit of innovation or industriousness, but of a parasitic relationship with the state.
We have seen the script play out repeatedly: multi-million-dollar public tenders awarded to shelf companies without a semblance of due process.
These contracts are either sub-contracted at a fraction of the cost or, as in the notorious Gwanda Solar Project, left as nothing more than expensive thorns in the side of the national power grid.
The wealth harvested from these shady deals is not used to build the nation; it is used to buy it.
Chivayo is notorious for his performative “generosity,” gifting luxury SUVs and wads of cash to social media influencers, musicians, and religious leaders who have one thing in common: their alignment with the ruling elite.
This is not charity; it is a calculated investment in silence and praise.
While he distributes Toyota Fortuners like candy to the famous, the public schools and hospitals that his deals have helped run down remain hollowed-out shells.
Our healthcare facilities have been turned into death traps, lacking lifesaving medication and basic equipment, while children in rural areas still sit on the bare earth under trees, learning without desks, chairs, or books.
The few times Chivayo has ventured into the realm of public service—such as the donation of a handful of ambulances—it has been choreographed with the precision of a state-funded publicity stunt.
If he were a legitimate philanthropist, why is he not reaching the people whose messages end up on my phone?
Why is his “charity” reserved for those with the loudest microphones and the most followers?
Legitimate organizations, like Strive Masiyiwa’s Higher Life Foundation, have established systems, offices, and clear channels for those in need to seek assistance.
If Chivayo’s heart truly bled for the poor, he would provide a transparent platform for the genuinely destitute to reach him effortlessly.
Instead, he appears to relish the spectacle of the “Big Man” syndrome.
He thrives on the power of the plea.
Over the past year, we have witnessed a grotesque theater of humiliation in Zimbabwe.
Desperate citizens have been reduced to posting videos of themselves praying for Chivayo’s health, or worse, using their innocent children to sing praises to him and the presidency in the hopes of catching his eye.
We have seen people crafting horrendous sculptures of his likeness, all in a bid to escape the crushing poverty that men of his ilk helped create.
This is not a success story; it is a national shame.
It is the commodification of desperation.
If Chivayo wants to be taken seriously as a man of the people, he should stop hiding behind a curated social media presence and open the gates.
He should make his contact details as public as his ego.
Let the thousands of widows and struggling students reach him directly instead of clogging the inboxes of strangers.
But he won’t do that, because a charlatan’s power lies in the selection of the recipient.
He needs the dance, the song, and the public worship to validate his existence.
The reality is that his wealth is a monument to the suffering of the ordinary Zimbabwean.
Every luxury car gifted to a celebrity is a desk missing from a classroom; every wad of cash flashed on Instagram is a bottle of insulin missing from a public pharmacy.
To see a nation so broken that it looks to its plunderers for salvation is the ultimate indictment of our current state.
Chivayo may have pockets full of public funds, but the sight of a population begging for his attention reveals a man who is utterly empty on the inside.
He is not a savior; he is a symptom of a diseased system, and as long as we mistake his patronage for philanthropy, the cycle of greed and poverty will continue to grind the Zimbabwean people into the dust.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
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