The harmattan that brought Buhari is dredging Nigeria clean of corruption - Zim is feeling the chill!

In his book, THINGS FALL APART, Chinua Achebe has often written about the harmattan winds or storm as the precursor or bearer of great change. It is the harmattan wind that fanned the inconsequential bush fire into the roaring inferno that destroyed the great forest and all the animals that failed to get away. It was the harmattan storm that carries the swarm of locust whose ravenous appetite stripped the land of every morsel of greenery. First it was the animals that starved to death and soon the people too died of starvation.

Nigeria's harmattan storm have continued blowing and, as usual, brought great change. It was the harmattan storm that blew Nigeria's old guard of corrupt and incompetent leaders to bring President Muhammadu Buhari last year. He vowed to deal with Nigeria's (and most of Africa) greatest curse – corruption – and he clearly was meant it unlike so many other leaders who have paid the usual lip-service.

A few weeks ago the Nigerian government announced it was going to recover $2 billion from former military strongman General Sani Abacha whose corruption practices have become the stuff of legends. On Monday Nigeria's information minister, Lai Mohammed, announced that the regime has just uncovered corruption cases implicating state governors, ministers, business leaders, public officials and bankers who stole $6.7 billion dollars in the seven-year period 2006 to 2013.

The democratic harmattan winds that swept President Buhari into office has fanned an anti-corruption forest fire that is scorching the land and not ever the big game are failing to get away.

2006 was the tail end of Olusegun Obasanjo's presidency; he was replaced in 2007 by Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.

Zimbabweans will remember Olusegun Obasanjo as the former Nigerian President who was the head the AU elections observer team of Zimbabwe's July 2013 rigged elections. It was him who down played the significance of President Mugabe's failure to produce voters roll, amongst many other serious irregularity, and endorsed Mugabe's victory.

Nearly one million Zimbabweans failed to cast their vote that year because their details were not in constituency voters roll they expected to vote in. There is no doubt that the regime had deliberately and systematically posted the details of opposition party supporters into other constituencies other than the constituency they had registered.

Of course the people would have discovered their names were not in the constituency voters roll and have this put right if the voters roll had been released for public scrutiny at least one month before the voting as is required by law. The regime's refusal to release the constituency voters roll is therefore highly significant particularly when President Mugabe's winning margin was one million votes – the same as those denied the vote!

The Nigeria's anti-corruption drag-net has only dredged one-year of President Obasanjo's eight years, 1999 to 2007 and has already caught some big fish. So corruption was rampant in Nigeria during former President Obasanjo's watch. As a Zimbabwean whose life has been turned upside down as has that of millions of other Zimbabweans; it is impossible to forgive or forget his public endorsement of Zimbabwe's 2013 fraudulent electoral process.

The eye of harmattan democratic storm that swept President Buhari into power in Nigeria last year has not as yet reached Zimbabwe but there is no doubt there is a chill in the air. The stories of Nigeria's anti-corruption drag-net catching the granddad of looters like General Abacha recovering the looted wealth is bound to make Zimbabwe's big-spenders who are looting as much as $2 billion a year groan.

President Mugabe rigged the July 2013 elections; President Olusegun Obasanjo helped the tyrant get away with it. Mugabe thought he would rig the country's economic recovery too but has since failed. Zimbabwe's worsening economic situation is socially and politically unsustainable. As if that was not bad enough, Zimbabwe is facing an El Nino induced drought; decades of misrule will make the situation worse than ever, the regime is stone broke for a start.

Zimbabwe's harmattan democratic storm has brought back home to roost the problems of mismanagement and corruption, Zanu PF has denied existed all these last 36 years; they are the driving force behind the country's worsening economic meltdown. President Mugabe has managed to resist regime change for 36 years by cheating, bribing, vote rigging and even murdering his opponents but in the economy he has met an adversary like no other, he cannot cheat or murderer economic recovery!

It is the economic meltdown that will in the end force democratic change, regime change, in Zimbabwe!