The billionaire Strive Masiyiwa is still to respond over the latest grim twist of fate, casting how the country’s most celebrated investigative journalist—renowned for exposing high-profile motor vehicle scandals—has found himself abandoned by the very employer who once championed his groundbreaking work. Stripped of his ability to hold the powerful to account, the journalist has been left to languish without basic medical support, his life spiraling into tragedy as his former employer, a billionaire known for public displays of philanthropy, ‘does nothing to intervene.’
The ultimate irony comes in the form of salvation from an unexpected source: a businessman infamous for alleged involvement in another car scandal, the very type the journalist built his reputation reporting on.
This intervention exposes the heart-wrenching reality that the journalist is now worse off than the day he was hired, allegedly betrayed by the employer who once touted him as their signature investment. In a cruel demonstration of neglect and rhetorical hypocrisy, all common sense and the lowest bar of humanity have been callously disregarded, leaving the journalist’s plight as a stark reminder of the cost of trust misplaced in the corridors of power.
Nyarota has struggled since the days after he was re-hired by the Daily News while in the US and told to fly back home to relaunch the paper in 2009, just before his employers betrayed him. The veteran journalist wrote at the weekend stating:
At the beginning of January 2003 an event triggered off a series of other events that culminated in a situation in which I found myself enduring a painful existence over the next two decades
The said events were triggered off by the deliberate actions of people whom I counted as friends and colleagues.
My situation deteriorated over the years to a stage where I desperately required assistance. My penury can easily and directly be traced back to the actions of the said colleagues, including an extremely wealthy former friend, and all professing to be devout Christians, who acting in concert literally dumped me by the roadside and left me to starve.
This week several other friends and professional colleagues intervened and came to the rescue.. As a result of their intervention by the end of today I had been rescued from my painful ordeal.
My white knight in shining armour is an individual personally unknown to me, who has pledged to donate to me the sum total of $15 000 required to meet my several urgent medical needs.
Sir Wicknell Chivhayo literally gave me a new lease of life. In the beginning so-called good friends abandoned and left me to starve and suffer for reasons that to this day remain obscure.
Today Sir Wicknell, a total stranger, came to my rescue. My family and I are overwhelmed with gratitude to him. We are also grateful to the several colleagues whose consciences were so pricked by my plight that they took effective and corrective action. May the dear Lord bless you all.
I pray that Sir Wicknell’s prompt decision today causes ﹰDr Sam Sipepa Nkomo , Jethro Goko, now the owner of my former newspaper, The Daily News, and billionaire Strive Masiyiwa to sleep soundly tonight and forever after.