HARARE – Harare socialite and leading political commentator Olley Maruma has died. He was 57 years of age.

A lawyer by training he became a public prosecutor briefly on return to Zimbabwe-Rhodesia in 1979 just before independence. Over the years he became a writer, film-maker, socialite and, as he descended into a life of non-conformism bordering on eccentricity, an outspoken supporter of President Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF, viciously attacking those who opposed the ruling party.

Maruma died on Thursday at Parirenyatwa Hospital after what the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation described as a short illness. Maruma appeared regularly on ZTV as he defended one Zanu-PF position or another. By the time of his death, he had become a board member of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings and chairman of Kingstons Entertainment, a subsidiary of government-owned Kingstons Holdings, which owns the music label Kingstons Music.

After he attained a law degree at Kent University in the United Kingdom Maruma raised eyebrows when he arrived back home just before independence with a white wife and three children who included two white children. He had married a British divorcee, Anne, the mother of two children from a previous marriage.

The Maruma marriage did not last long in Harare and after the couple divorced Anne took her children along with the couple’s one child back to the UK. Maruma generally became a drifter after the divorce.

Born in Bulawayo he went to Goromonzi High School where he completed his A-Levels in 1971. He completed his A-Levels in England. After his law studies Maruma underwent a television training course with the British Council’s media department.

He served an attachment with the BBC as a trainee producer and worked on a number of documentary programmes.

In 1986, he was elected chairman of the Zimbabwe Film and Video Association, whose formation he spearheaded. He was at one time the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ).

Coming Home, a novel by Maruma, was published in 2009. The book was funded by the Swedish International Development Authority (Sida), through its Culture Fund.

The story dwells on the mixed feelings of Zimbabwean society towards the central figure on his return from abroad at the time of independence. To some, he had betrayed the country by going to study in the UK while his compatriots were at the battle front making history. To others he represented the new breed of black men – cosmopolitan, well read, broad-minded and in Maruma’s own case, non-conformist.

By The Zimbabwe Times