HARARE – Tender businessman Wicknell Chivayo frequent involuntary trips to prison have left some inmates at Chikurubi Maximum Prison feeling as though he is “one of them”.
Chivayo, a convicted fraudster who once did time at Chikurubi, has been back at the prison after being arrested on an alleged $5,6 million tender swindle.
Inmates say the hefty Chivayo, B.I.G as they call him, makes their lives that little bit more livable when he is inside the prison walls with his access to outside riches.
Joramu Siwela, the longest-serving prisoner at Chikurubi after clocking 22 years in the nick after arriving as a 19-year-old convicted love killer, says he has a special bond with Chivayo.
“What I’m going to tell you about Wicknell is not just my personal opinion but it is how every prisoner here feels about him. To be honest with you, we really miss Wicknell whom we call B.I.G. He will always be our hero because he has always been supporting the plight of prisoners,” Siwela is quoted as saying by H-Metro.
Prison is never dull when Wicknell is around, he says.
“He sponsors our soccer and volley games and he buys uniforms for some of us… that’s why he’s a darling to everyone here, we see him as one of us,” Siwela adds, who stabbed and killed a love rival over a girl when they were both pupils at Chaplin High School in Gweru.
Chivayo faces a lengthy prison spell if convicted of defrauding the Zimbabwe Power Company over an unperformed tender for a solar power plant in Gwanda. While that would be disastrous for him and his family, it may not be necessarily so for Siwela.
“I’m the longest serving prisoner here in Chikurubi and years back I was a good fighter so when Wicknell first came into the prison, I was his bodyguard I would protect him from other prisoners,” Siwela says.
“I earned a living here in prison out of that because each time he visited, I would always get groceries as payment for the job I was doing. He would not do good things to me alone but to everyone that is why he is being missed by all of us here.”
