Mnangagwa’s oligarchs: The heirs of Cecil Rhodes

Zimbabwe’s first modern businessman was Cecil John Rhodes, the tycoon and imperialist whose remains are buried in the Matobo Hills near Bulawayo. The patronage politics of the past few decades of Zanu-PF rule and the mineral riches and other economic goodies on offer in Zimbabwe, have swollen a private sector that resembles the adventurers, buccaneers and rogues of Rhodes’s era.