Wicknell Chivayo: The flair, the flavour and the fantasy of Africa's swankiest Golden Boy

The grand, pulsating theater of African power has lost its most flamboyant star, its most intoxicating enigma - a young prince of influence who did not merely walk through the corridors of state, but swept through them like a dazzling, gold-flecked hurricane.

Wicknell Chivayo, the 43-year-old Zimbabwean magnate, who died on Wednesday in a helicopter crash in Zimbabwe together with his wife and four others, was a creature of incandescent ambition, a boy-king of diplomacy and backroom arbitrage who wielded power not as a cold instrument of office, but as a fine art.

To watch him cruise through the high-ceilinged palaces of Southern Africa, the marble halls of Kenya's State House, and the coastal sanctuaries of Dar-es-Salaam was to witness a masterclass in modern alchemy.

Chivayo was the undisputed architect of the unwritten deal, the indispensable shadow figure who sat at the right hand of fixers, whispering into the ears of Presidents while the world outside could only gaze at the closed doors in quiet awe and hushed amazement.

Source: Citizen Digital