Professor Arthur Mutambara — the minor opposition leader who is said to hold the balance of power in talks on a government of national unity in Zimbabwe — has never been reticent about his achievements or ambition.

Two and a half years ago when he granted me a rare interview in Johannesburg he refused to get up from his desk to pose for the photographer because his jacket did not match his trousers. “I'm very concerned about my image,” he said while buttoning it up.

There is certainly nothing humble about an academic with no political following who decided to announce his availability for a leading role in Zimbabwean politics after 15 years overseas by sending out a press release setting out his conditions for doing so and inviting anyone who accepted to contact him. In the end it was Welshman Ncube, general secretary of the then newly formed breakaway MDC and the real power in the party, who took the bait.

Mr Mugabe's Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, Mr Mugabe's Security Minister, dismissed him as a stooge of the Americans while others claimed that he was a Zanu (PF) plant to further divide and weaken the opposition.

An intense, restless and articulate 42-year-old, Dr Mutambara has gained a reputation for intemperate language and posturing. In March 2007, after he was arrested by police, he called for a declaration of war on the Government. More recently, the man regarded by many as a shameless opportunist has appeared to be currying favour with his former enemies by parroting Mr Mugabe's anti-Western rhetoric.

Asked if he was concerned about the physical danger he faced being in Zimbabwe, he said: “I'm a revolutionary, my life is meaningless. A revolutionary by definition has no life. What's important to me is Zimbabwe. Fifty years from now what will be the Mutambara legacy?”

Professor Arthur G.O. Mutambara has a doctorate in robotics from Oxford University. He spent a year as a research scientist at Nasa, taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked at the management consultancy McKinsey & Company. His pursuit of excellence seems to have applied even to his choice of marriage partner. He proudly concluded a list of his family's academic qualifications by saying with the fact that his wife also has a Phd — in Strategic Marketing from Cardiff University.

After attending Hartzell High School in Mutare, Mr Mutambara went to the University of Zimbabwe in Harare to study engineering. He and was by all accounts a brilliant student, who won every scholarship he applied for. It was here, in 1988, that he first became politicised. As the secretary general of the Student Representative Council he was among the leaders of the first post-independence student demonstration against Government corruption which was violently suppressed by the police.

After his brief taste of student politics, Mr Mutambara appears to have put all his energies into his academic career. He qualified from university and won a prestigious Rhodes scholarship to do a Masters in electrical Engineering/Computer Engineering at Oxford University, and went on to do a Phd in Robotics and Mechatronics.

Typically, Mr Mutambara said that he loved Oxford because it was so competitive “academically and socially”.

Did he come across any racism while was there? “Those things are there but I'm a fighter and those things I just brush them off ... I didn't suffer because I'm a soldier, soldiers don't suffer those things.”

After Oxford he got a job teaching at an engineering college in Florida and then worked at the US space agency Nasa where he did research on unmanned robots for the Mars Rover project. Although he has been dubbed the “rocket scientist”, his time at Nasa was brief. Indeed, From his CV, a pattern emerges of a man who flitted from job to job, rarely staying more than a year in each.

So why did he spend 15 years away from Zimbabwe? “We all fight in different ways,” he said. “I felt I needed to go to school, to get experience and exposure and that will mean I can make a better contribution to Zimbabwe. Now the time has come for me to jump from the pan into fire.”

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