Willowgate was a 1988-89 Zimbabwean political scandal in which the Bulawayo Chronicle revealed illegal resale of automobile purchases by various government officials. The ensuing investigation resulted in the resignations of five members of President Robert Mugabe's cabinet. One of the five, Maurice Nyagumbo, later committed suicide after being charged with perjury. The reporters who had broken the story, Geoffrey Nyarota and Davison Maruziva, were subsequently removed from their posts.
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Discovery
In October 1988, member of parliament Obert Mpofu accidentally received a check from a car company in Willowvale, an industrial area of Harare; the check had actually been intended for Alford Mpofu, a friend of Industry Minister Callistus Ndlovu. Obert Mpofu took the check to Geoffrey Nyarota, editor of the state-owned Bulawayo Chronicle. The paper had already built a reputation for aggressive investigations into corruption at all levels of government, and began to investigate.
In the weeks following their discovery of the check, Nyarota and deputy editor Davison Maruziva learned that ministers and officials from the government of President Robert Mugabe had been given early access to buy foreign cars at the Willowvale assembly plant. In some cases, the cars were bought wholesale and resold at a 200% profit. Implicated ministers included Ndlovu, Political Affairs Minister Maurice Nyagumbo, Defense Minister Enos Nkala and Minister of State for Political Affairs, Frederick Shava, who was later elected as President of the UN Economic and Social Affairs Council in 2016. The newspaper published documents from the plant to prove its case, including identification numbers from the vehicles.
Consequences
In December 1988, Mugabe appointed a three-person panel, the Sandura Commission, to investigate the allegations. The Washington Post reported that the commission's hearings "struck a deep chord" in Zimbabwe, where citizens had grown to resent the perceived growing corruption of government. A provincial governor and five of Mugabe's cabinet ministers eventually resigned due to implication in the scandal, including Shava, Nkala and Nyagumbo, who at the time was the third highest-ranking official in Mugabe's party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). Nyagumbo committed suicide by drinking pesticide.
However, Nyartora and Maruziva were both forced out of their jobs with the state-owned paper and into newly created public relations positions in Harare. Though the men were given pay raises, Mugabe also stated that the move was a result of their "overzealousness", leading to public belief that they had been removed for their reporting. ZANU parliamentarians also criticized Nyarota and Maruziva, with the Minister of State for National Security stating that criticism was welcome, but "to the extent that the press now deliberately target Government as their enemy, then we part ways."
In music
The scandal featured prominently in the lyrics of Solomon Skuza's album Love and Scandals. In one song, he asks, "how can someone buy a car and sell it again?" In another, he sings of his love leaving him for "a guy who owns a Cressida", referring to the Toyota Cressidas assembled at Willowvale.
In novels
The scandal was featured in George Mujajati's novel "The Sun Will Rise Again" as the "Sisisida scandal".