Hon. Anthony Kasandwe MP Bamgweulu MP shares…
There is wisdom older than any constitution ever written on this continent. It is this:
THE DEAD BELONG TO THOSE WHO LOVED THEM
Not to those who governed alongside them. Not to those who defeated them. Not to those who wrote laws for them nor those who saluted them. The dead belong to the arms that held them, the voices that called their name, the feet that walked besides them when they were booed, the shoulders they cried on, and the hearts that will carry their absence for the rest of their living days
That wisdom is what is missing from this conversation about the remains of our former president His Excellency Dr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu (MHSRIP).
A government is built of laws, processes and procedures. It is designed to be consistent, predictable, and procedural.
But here is what a government cannot do.
It cannot grieve.
It cannot feel the hollow silence of a house after a father has left it for the last time. It cannot understand the particular weight of a child who has not yet said goodbye. It cannot measure the unfinished prayers of a widow who is still waiting to lower her husband into the ground with the rites her people have observed since before this nation had a name.
The beauty is that a government is not run by robots. It is run by human beings who attach humanity in the execution of their duties because they are people who have themselves stood at gravesides, who have wept, who have beliefs, customs and traditions, people who understand in the marrow of their bones that a funeral is not a procedure.
It is a passage. It is sacred. It is irreversible. A government is built by the people for the people.
Let us be clear about one thing: there is no law in Zambia that prescribes exactly how a former president must be buried, who must preside, or where he must rest. Precedent is a reference not a final verdict. When precedent is used to override the expressed wishes of a grieving family, it has been stripped of its dignity and turned into an instrument of control
The Lungu family has not asked for power.
They have not refused a state funeral.
They have asked for what every Zambian family is entitled to the right to bury their own. Genuine dialogue without prejudice is of vital importance than seeking control.
The conversation shouldn’t be about who wins, who is right, which laws stipulates what or which precedent to follow. It should be about putting our fallen father to rest. The family holds that duty and the nation has the duty to render support
A government that must demonstrate its authority at a funeral has confused governance with dominance. Showing control over a dead body proves nothing except that the living still fear what the dead represented.
And a government that fights a dead man has already told the nation everything it needs to know about how it treats the living.
Edgar Lungu served this country. Whatever history’s verdict on his years in office, he carried the weight of the presidency. He built roads, shools, airports, universities, hospitals, bridges and many many more, projects that are still being commissioned even in 2026. To us in Bangweulu, this is the man who invested in the potential that many presidents spoke and talk about. We owe him, at the very minimum, a burial conducted in peace, dignity and respect. We owe his children a farewell not fought over in foreign courtrooms. We owe his widow the right to observe her customs and close this chapter in the way her family sees fit. We owe him respect and dignity accorded to the departed.
These are not political debts we owe him, they are human ones. A befitting burial is not in the military honours at his funeral or the burial site we choose for him. It is in the Legacy we carry of him, it is in the respect we show for his name and the dignity of how we handle his mortal remains.
The river of a man’s life has its source, its journey, and its end. When it reaches the sea, no court and no instrument of state can turn it back upstream.
Edgar Lungu’s river has reached the sea.
Let the family stand at the shore.
Let them say their words.
Let them lower him gently, in their way, in their time, in their grief.
There is life after politics. In fact, politics in its essence should reflect humanity, peace and compassion for those in positions of weakness.
The greatness of a nation is measured not only in how it treats the living but in how it honours the dead.