I first met Emmerson Mnangagwa and other leaders of the Zimbabwe African National Union party, which had fought a bloody war for the independence of the country then known as Rhodesia, shortly after their arrival in what is now Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, in early 1980.
A towering, brash and enigmatic figure, Mnangagwa had arrived in the then Salisbury just ahead of his boss, Robert Mugabe, who the Rhodesian government and military branded "the most wanted and most dangerous Marxist terrorist in the world".
In my first interview with him as Zimbabwe's security minister not long after, Mnangagwa looked much more polished and relaxed - even charming - as he sat behind a modest desk dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and red tie.
His office was also the headquarters of his dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation security police.This was to be the first of several interviews I would have with Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, who security officials dubbed "Jesus, the son of God".
A senior security police officer explained the nickname: "You go against him at your peril. He is the power behind the throne."
As millions of Zimbabweans poured onto the streets this week to celebrate Mugabe's political demise, it seemed ironic that "God's son" had ended - or perhaps inherited - his political father's near  four-decades of catastrophic rule, which reduced to penury a country that had the potential to be one of Africa's richest.
As Mugabe's forced resignation was announced in parliament on Tuesday, the tumultuous celebrations by Zimbabweans masked the depth of the economic and political crisis facing the long-suffering nation of 13-million.A snapshot of Zimbabwe as Mugabe was unceremoniously dispatched into retirement looks like this:
• Unemployment is at 90%;
• The economy has collapsed, leaving Zimbabweans to queue for hours and days to access their money from cash-starved banks;
• At least a quarter of the population has fled to neighbouring countries and overseas to the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the past decade;
• The once-excellent health sector is no more. Mugabe himself goes to Singapore and Malaysia for medical treatment;
• Clean water and electricity supplies are intermittent at best;
• Millions of Zimbabweans live below the poverty line, unable to afford a decent meal a day; and
• The media remains severely regulated by the state.
So who is Mnangagwa and what economic policies is he likely to pursue?
In my interviews with him and in many public speeches he has given since, the "Crocodile" - his other nickname, given to him by younger Zimbabwean journalists - has painstakingly sought to cast himself as a moderate, pragmatic politician who seeks to cultivate harmonious relations with both East and West.
Indeed, his close contacts with Western countries in the late 1990s were reportedly responsible for his removal from the security ministry by Mugabe, who suspected him of having presidential ambitions.
Reviled and revered by both foes and friends, Mnangagwa can be tough - some say ruthless - when the situation demands. An incident I recall from the late 1990s makes this point.He once sauntered onto the tarmac of Harare International Airport - renamed Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport just two weeks ago - as Zimbabwean cabinet ministers waited for Mugabe's return from one of his many trips abroad.
A week before, the military had detained at least two journalists from an independent newspaper in Zimbabwe after they wrote a news story on the military.
Nathan Shamuyarira, a veteran politician of Zimbabwe's freedom struggle and at the time information minister, was talking to journalists about the issue when Mnangagwa arrived to tell him to "keep quiet" and not speak about the journalists' detention or security matters because, as Mnangagwa said, there were sensitive issues that Shamuyarira was not privy to.
Journalists who witnessed the exchange were dumbfounded by Mnangagwa's intervention.
For many it showed how he related to some of his colleagues.
Mnangagwa inherits a bewildering array of tough political and economic challenges from Mugabe.The interim government must not only come up with a credible road map to stimulate a sinking economy, but it has to craft visible and working reforms in a range of areas, including the country's uneven electoral playing field after frequent charges of election rigging by Mugabe in the past.
Mnangagwa's biggest test would be how he managed an election defeat if the poll were to be judged to be free and fair by most international observers.
An election will be held by September 2018, unless the interim regime postpones the poll.
Would he willingly cede power - unlike his predecessor, who was accused of rigging elections ever since the emergence of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change?
And will Zimbabweans who have tasted "people power" in the past few weeks allow any more trampling of their hard-won freedoms?
But, more critically, the influence of the armed forces in the country's political governance is likely to loom large in the months and years ahead.
This is because, once the military tastes power, the likelihood of soldiers attempting to impose their will if they feel that they or their interests are threatened cannot be ignored.
This is even more the case in Zimbabwe, where the current crop of military leaders believe they are key stakeholders in a nation born out of the blood of an estimated 30,000 people during the 1970s.
Analysts accuse Mnangagwa of being partly responsible for the early '80s killings of mostly opposition supporters in southwestern Matabeleland and Midlands province, when Mugabe sought to crush his chief rival at the time, Joshua Nkomo.Mugabe has never apologised for the atrocities, estimated to have cost 20000 lives. But the modus operandi of Mugabe's Soviet-style government and party was such that all in the government and Zanu-PF had to toe the line without question or be thrown into the political wilderness - or worse.
Mnangagwa is a product of this political system - a system that still largely exists - although his ascendancy must represent an opportunity finally to become his own god.
• Mdlongwa is director of the Sol Plaatje Institute for Media Leadership at Rhodes University. He writes here in his private capacity..