HARARE - Prophets are expected to see the future. Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa has had the rarer distinction of seeing it change.

On Sunday, the founder of the United Family International Church displayed US$1 million in cash donated by the businessman Wicknell Chivayo, Nehanda Radio reported. Twenty plastic-wrapped bundles of US$100 notes were laid out before a packed congregation, to cheers, whistles and applause.

“This is actually a prophecy. The next bag is coming from you to the altar,” Makandiwa told the faithful. “It cannot be that you go to your grave without delivering a million dollars here.”

From no to yes

It is a long way from where things stood in June. Chivayo said then that Makandiwa and his wife, Ruth, had declined an undisclosed gift and had instead invited him to their home to pray for him. “Known examples are Mrs Guti from ZAOGA, President of ZIFA (Nqobile) Magwizi and even Prophet Makandiwa and his wife, who instead gratuitously offered to invite me to his house to pray for me to have more blessings in order to bless others,” Chivayo wrote at the time, according to Nehanda Radio.

Then, at a church service over the last weekend of July, the prophet changed course. “Leaving this place we are already expecting that the gentleman will bring our gift. The gifts are there. I’m the one who had not collected. We will receive them, pray for you and bless you,” he said.

He insisted that his earlier refusal had been a matter of principle, not a response to criticism of Chivayo. “You have to be a seer for you to be able to give me. Not just a giver. But the person is humiliated, castigated as if he is asking me. No, he wants to give,” he said.

When he announced the donation on 2 August, Chivayo said the money was for the church’s building plans, not for Makandiwa personally. “This is not about a man but it’s about the work of God,” he wrote on X. Nehanda Radio reported that the prophet is also set to receive a 2026 Rolls-Royce Cullinan, and his wife a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon.

In good company

Makandiwa is far from the only cleric on Chivayo’s list. Uebert Angel and his wife Beverly, Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi, Pastor Ian Ndlovu, Prophet Walter Magaya, Talent Madungwe and Trymore Muparinga have all accepted vehicles and cash, according to Nehanda Radio. Mutendi has received gifts worth more than US$4 million.

Not everyone has said yes. Eunor Guti, widow of the ZAOGA founder Archbishop Ezekiel Guti, declined, citing the principles of her late husband. ZIFA president Nqobile Magwizi said accepting vehicles would have breached football governance and conflict-of-interest standards.

The commentary

The display has revived questions about where Chivayo’s money comes from. Chivayo rose to prominence after his company Intratrek won the Gwanda Solar Project contract in 2015. He faced fraud and money laundering charges over that project and was acquitted in 2024, Nehanda Radio noted, and he has not been convicted of corruption in relation to the money he is now donating.

The writer Tendai Ruben Mbofana asked how church leaders would respond if the political tide turned. “How will they explain accepting millions in hard cash that may ultimately be traced back to public funds meant for national development, healthcare, and infrastructure?” he wrote. Nehanda Radio stressed that no evidence had been presented that the money came from public funds.

The cartoons’ view

The two cartoons here, drawn as the U-turn became public, show the prophet on his knees before a seated benefactor and a sack of cash, while a man in the background points out that “The queue is over here, Prophet!” In one he declares that “the prodigal recipient of the gift has returned”; in the other, “This is not a U-turn. It is a divine redirection.”

Those are the artist’s words, not Makandiwa’s. But the phrase has the ring of something a church communications team might wish it had thought of first.

What it means

Chivayo has said repeatedly that those who decline his gifts are free to do so without hard feelings. Makandiwa has shown that those who decline them are also free to change their minds. On Sunday, the congregation was told the next million should come from them.