Sonja demands $25m, three Rolls-Royces from Chivayo

Sonja Madzikanda has filed for divorce from Zimbabwean businessman Wicknell Chivayo in the High Court’s Family Division, demanding a $25 million lump sum, $40,000 in monthly spousal maintenance, $1 million annually for holidays and lifestyle expenses, prime properties in Harare and Johannesburg and a fleet of seven luxury vehicles including three Rolls-Royces, in what has become Zimbabwe’s most watched and most consequential divorce proceeding in recent memory.

The demands, laid out in summons filed in January 2026 through Mahuni Gidiri Law Chambers, have landed against the backdrop of a parallel application by Chivayo to force access to their two young children, accusing Madzikanda of using the children as leverage in the financial dispute. The High Court has yet to rule on the access application, with Justice Amy Tsanga hearing arguments in chambers. The broader divorce battle remains in its early stages.

The marriage and its legal status

At the centre of everything is a dispute about whether the relationship is legally a marriage at all, and what rights flow from whatever it was.

Madzikanda argues the couple entered a valid customary law union on or around July 17, 2017, with lobola negotiated and paid, reportedly at $50,000. She contends the marriage, though never formally registered, is governed by Zimbabwe’s Marriages Act and can only be dissolved by a competent court. On that basis, she argues the Matrimonial Causes Act applies, entitling her to an equitable share of assets accumulated during their time together.

Crucially, she also dismisses as legally meaningless a traditional separation token known as gupuro that Chivayo allegedly paid in early 2024 to signal the end of the relationship. Her position is that no traditional act by one party can unilaterally dissolve a customary marriage. A court must do it.

Chivayo’s lawyers at Mpofu Mazhata Chambers take the opposite view. They argue the customary union was never formally registered within the 12-month window required by the Marriages Act, which strips it of legal standing for purposes of property division or spousal maintenance. His legal team says the union carries relevance only for matters concerning the children’s status, custody and inheritance. Everything else, they argue, is outside the scope of what Madzikanda can legally claim.

His lawyers also maintain that Madzikanda effectively ended the relationship herself, that the couple’s estates were always separate, and that she made no meaningful contribution to the assets she now seeks a share of. One court filing, in terms that left no ambiguity about the tone Chivayo’s legal team intended to set, stated bluntly: “Defendant is not her meal-ticket for life.”

What she is claiming

Madzikanda’s court papers read as a detailed inventory of the wealth she says accumulated during the relationship. Beyond the $25 million cash settlement and $40,000 monthly maintenance, she is seeking sole and exclusive ownership of a stand in Gletwyn Township, Unit 4 at Rikitayi Villas on Chisolme Road in Ballantyne Park, and an apartment at DaVinci Suites in Sandton, Johannesburg.

On vehicles, she is claiming a Rolls-Royce Spectre, a Rolls-Royce Ghost, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Range Rover, a Mercedes-Benz V-Class, a Mercedes-Benz Maybach and a Lexus SUV. She also wants Chivayo to service those vehicles twice a year.

Her papers also reference a private jet she says is believed to be owned, controlled or regularly used by Chivayo, and she is asking the court to pierce the corporate veil of companies and trusts she alleges are holding marital assets. The businesses named in her declaration include Intratek, WMC Trading, IMC Communications, Trintas Petroleum and Eldo. Intratek is the vehicle through which Chivayo received several large government contracts that made him one of Zimbabwe’s most visible and most controversial businessmen.

In her declaration, Madzikanda argues the marriage has broken down irretrievably, citing allegations of adultery, emotional abuse and abandonment, stating Chivayo violated the marriage by entering into a relationship with another woman, now his wife. Chivayo remarried in March 2025. Reports at the time said the lobola for his new wife Lucy Muteke was $300,000, six times what was reportedly paid for Madzikanda.

The custody battle

Running in parallel is a dispute about their two children, a son born in January 2018 and a daughter born in March 2019. Chivayo filed an urgent chamber application accusing Madzikanda of systematically denying him access, including blocking phone contact, withholding school information and preventing him from attending the children’s events. He identified the most recent denial as occurring on February 28, 2026, and argued through his certificate of urgency that both children were at critical developmental stages where paternal presence was essential.

Madzikanda’s opposition to the access application was filed and is equally blunt. She says the application lacks urgency, that Chivayo already has access to the children and sees them regularly, and that he waited nearly two years after their 2024 separation before approaching the court. She also says the one specific date Chivayo cites, February 28, was a day the children were on a medical trip to South Africa that Chivayo himself had arranged. She denies ever demanding money in exchange for contact.

“I deny and dispute that I have made monetary demands in exchange for contact with the children,” she states in her opposing papers. “It is highly regrettable that the applicant conflates the matrimonial dispute with the issue of contact with the children.”

She is asking the High Court to dismiss the access application with costs, calling it an abuse of process filed in bad faith.

What comes next

The case raises a question that legal analysts say could set an important precedent in Zimbabwe: how do courts treat high-value unregistered customary marriages, and what rights, if any, do spouses in such unions hold over assets accumulated during the relationship? The answer will determine whether Madzikanda’s multi-million-dollar claims survive or collapse at the threshold.

Both the child access application and the broader divorce proceedings remain before the High Court. The hearing on access was before Justice Tsanga. No judgment has been issued on either matter.