In death, in life Chivayo holds up a mirror to us

The news that came from Kudenga Farm, Marondera, on the evening of 30 September 2026 was the kind that stops a country like Zimbabwe mid-scroll. A Bell 430 helicopter carrying businessman Wicknell Chivayo, his wife Lucy Muteke, and three others had crashed and more shockingly there were no survivors.

Later Zimbanbwe Republic Police Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirmed six souls on board had perished and that identification would require forensic work.

Family spokesperson Herbert Chivayo  also confirmed the loss.

Later President Emmerson Mnangagwa, while visiting the Gletwin family home, described Chivayo as his friend.

For a few hours, the country refused to believe it. We have lived through so many such hoaxes. But as condolences from across the continent began to filter in, and as the State, the family and the police spoke with one voice, the reality settled.

Wicknell Munodaani Chivayo was 45, though many in the public space knew him as the 43-year-old flamboyant tenderpreneur.

He was an enigmatic figure, and perhaps that is the most honest word for him. Chivayo was loved and loathed in equal measure, he had built a career that was impossible to ignore.

Zim Community News is a community paper, not a gossip tabloid. We are solution-based, grounded in Ubuntu and Christian values.

It is from that position that we must speak to this moment, because the reaction to Chivayo’s death has been as revealing as his life was.

A polarised nation

Within minutes of the first unconfirmed posts, Zimbabwe’s timeline had split into two funerals.

On one side, grief, shock, and fervent prayer. Tributes poured in from beneficiaries of his largesse – artists, footballers, church leaders, students, war veterans, ordinary families who had received cars, cash, houses.

He claimed to have given away more than US$70 million in recent years, a figure that made global headlines. Whether one agrees with the method or not, for many households that money was school fees paid and a small business started.

On the other side, mockery, memes, and open celebration. Old court cases were exhumed and scrutinised.

The Gwanda Solar Project contract that made his name synonymous with controversy was relitigated as a final judgment. The language was cruel.

This polarisation is not new. We saw it recently with our Chimurenga music hero Dr. Thomas Mapfumo, a man who gave this nation its liberation soundtrack, being dragged into partisan mudslinging on social media.

Now we see it again with Chivayo. We judge everything along political lines – ZANU PF or the opposition party, Chivayo as President Mnangagwa’s man or another political leader’s target, patriot or puppet.

We have lost the ability to hold two truths at once: that a man can be a generous giver and a contested businessman; that he can be a friend of presidents and still be a son of Chivhu who started at Ximex Mall.

Ubuntu teaches us: _Munhu munhu navanhu_ – a person is a person through other people.

Christianity teaches us: love your neighbour, and do not rejoice when your enemy falls. Proverbs 24:17. If we abandon these at the moment of death, when do we ever practice them?

Who was Wicknell Chivayo – And what his rise represents

In order to write a fair and informed comment, we have to first  state what is known.

Chivayo rose from humble beginnings in Harare’s CBD, to founding Intratrek Zimbabwe. His business was energy, infrastructure, government contracts.

His fame, however, came from his lifestyle – the cars, the private helicopter, the designer clothes, the live videos where he counted out US dollars.

He cultivated friendships at the highest level – at home with President Mnangagwa, who called him “consummately philanthropic” and said his charity touched lives across politics, religion, sport and culture, and on the continent, where he was photographed with several heads of state.

These high-profile relationships were part of his brand and part of the surrounding controversy.

His philanthropy was unconventional. It was personal, performative, and direct – not through a foundation with audited accounts, but through social media announcements and handover ceremonies.

For his critics, this was patronage and for his supporters, this was a  young black Zimbabwean who, unlike many who make it, did not hide his wealth abroad but spent it visibly at home.

Both things can be true. A community publication must be able to say that.

And here lies a great move we must cleverly acknowledge. One of the defining, if under-reported, achievements of President Mnangagwa’s presidency has been to produce a conducive environment for empowering young people in sectors previously thought to be reserved only for those who fought in the liberation struggle and their favoured cronies.

For decades, energy, mining and big government tenders were seen as a closed shop. Under the Second Republic’s mantra of ‘Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo’, that gate was opened.

That is how a generation that includes Wicknell Chivayo and figures like Scott Sakupwanya – the young Mabvuku MP who rose from gold dealing to parliament, from hustle to influence – could emerge.

They came from Ximex Mall, not from the trenches of the 1970s, and yet they found space to bid, to build, to win and to lose in public.

Kudos to President Mnangagwa for that generational shift. It is a real empowerment story. What remains, and this is the honest part, is that there is need for more guidance on how this newly empowered young capital can build the nation in return – from compliance and transparency to institution-building beyond personal gifting.

We must not pretend Chivayo’s record was unblemished. But a death is not an audit. A funeral is not a courtroom.

The family of Lucy Muteke, the pilots Captain Kelvin T. Soda and Captain Courage Mutavirwa, and aide Senelisiwe Magagula, who also died in that crash, deserve dignity.

The solution: What do we do with this moment?

Let us re-learn how to mourn. In our culture, _kufa kwemunhu_ is sacred. You do not post laughing emojis on a widow’s obituary. We call on our readers, especially the youth on X, Facebook and TikTok, to choose restraint.

Let us separate personality from system. The anger many Zimbabweans feel is not really about one 45-year-old man. It is about a system where opportunity still feels opaque. Chivayo held up a mirror to our inequality. If we turn this moment into only about him, we miss the policy conversation – how do we make the new youth empowerment truly transparent, accountable and broad-based so that the kid currently hustling at Ximex without connections can also rise?

Let us redeem philanthropy. Zimbabwe needs givers. But we need philanthropy that builds, not just blesses. The challenge to our emerging business class – many of whom admired Chivayo’s audacity, including Scott and others – is to move from car gifting to institution building. Endow a scholarship that outlives you. Build a factory that employs 500. Ubuntu philanthropy is not _”look what I gave”_ but _”look what we built.”_

Let us fight misinformation. The first 12 hours after the crash saw a fake condolence statement attributed to Kenyan President William Ruto, later disowned by State House spokesperson Hussein Mohamed. Verify before sharing.

Final word and a proposal

Wicknell Chivayo was not a saint, and he was not a demon. He was a Zimbabwean – complex, ambitious, flawed, generous, controversial. He lived large and, in the cruelest way, died young.

To his children, to his extended family, to the families of all who perished at Kudenga Farm, we extend our deepest condolences. _Mwari aise mufaro wavo parutivi rwake._

To Zimbabwe, we say: let us not be a nation that only finds unity in celebrating another’s downfall. Let us uphold _hunhu_.

In recognition of his impact on ordinary lives, and to turn this generational empowerment into lasting good, *we propose that after being declared a hero, Government can establish a Philanthropy Fund under the Chivayo name – the Wicknell Chivayo Philanthropy and Community Empowerment Fund.* Run transparently with audited accounts, the Fund could institutionalize what was personal: scholarships for disadvantaged students, seed capital for youth at Ximex Mall and other hubs, support for artists, football development, and clinics. That way, the cars will fade, but the classrooms will remain. It would be a fitting way to guide young wealth to build the nation in return.

May his death teach us how to live better with each other.