Simbarashe Namusi
It has long been said that every man has a price.
Some philosophers imagined that price to be noble: justice, love, or honor.
In Zimbabwe, however, the price tag has been revealed by one man with bottomless pockets and an endless appetite for headlines: Wicknell Chivayo.
In this land of potholes and promises, Wicknell has proven that loyalty is not a virtue—it is a transaction.
And he is paying in the hardest currency imaginable: top-of-the-range vehicles, lubricated by a steady drip of United States dollars.
No tenders, no budget debates, no Treasury statements.
Just Wicknell’s deep pockets, disbursing “donations” that transform critics into choirs, skeptics into praise singers, and prophets into panel-beaters of prophecy.
The formula is simple.
Find a public figure with a platform—be it a footballer with a goal drought, a musician with fading relevance, a preacher running out of parables, or a comedian with a tired joke—and place a gleaming SUV in their driveway.
Suddenly, dissent evaporates like fuel in a jerry can.
A Range Rover is more persuasive than any manifesto.
A wad of US dollars silences more critics than any censorship law.
And so, one man’s largesse has achieved what entire ministries have failed to do: unite Zimbabweans.
Not around ideals, or values, or dreams, but around the shared hope that maybe—just maybe—they, too, will one day receive a “donation.”
The gospel according to Wicknell is not preached from pulpits but from car dealerships. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit… a double cab.
What makes it all the more extraordinary is the sheer transparency of the arrangement.
These are not backroom deals or secret bribes. No—these are Instagrammed, hashtagged, and livestreamed deliveries, complete with handshakes and photo shoots.
Loyalty is now a spectacle, a theater of gratitude played out on social media feeds.
Some call it generosity.
Others whisper about ulterior motives.
But in a nation where hunger has become a daily sermon and poverty a permanent pew, the morality of the gift is rarely questioned.
When a man opens his deep pockets and pulls out an SUV, the recipient does not ask about ethics.
They ask only about engine capacity.
So the old saying must be updated.
Every man has a price, yes—but in Zimbabwe, that price comes with leather upholstery, free servicing for 10,000 kilometers, and a full tank courtesy of Wicknell’s donations.
Even the American dollars he sprinkles around, like confetti at a wedding, are no longer mere currency.
They are instruments of devotion, each bill folded neatly into the hymn book of national loyalty.
Future historians may scratch their heads over this era.
They will wonder how a people facing daily hardships found their loudest cheer not for reform or justice, but for the man who turned philanthropy into performance and donations into dominion.
But until then, Wicknell’s gospel is simple, profound, and devastatingly effective. It requires no theology, no ideology—just one holy instruction that unlocks both loyalty and leather seats:
“Go and see Victor.”
