GOVERNMENT FAILURE TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION AND RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF FORMER PRESIDENT EDGAR CHAGWA LUNGU.
Date: 23 June 2026 | Lusaka, Zambia.
Fellow Zambians,
The events of the past year surrounding the burial of former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu stand as evidence of the government’s failure to defend and protect the Constitution of the Republic of Zambia.
There was no need for the family and nation to have gone through this past year.
From the start, the government failed in its constitutional, and purely human, duty to respect President Lungu’s rights. Section 4 of the benefits of former Presidents Act, Cap 15 very clearly gives the government the duty to provide medical care, security, and support to former heads of state.
Instead of honoring the written law, the government acted on vindictive political, rather than human, feelings. It lost control of its constitutional responsibility to cover his medical care while he was alive, and that loss of control was the beginning of its failure to uphold the constitutional rights of a former head of state.
The government failed to reason between fair justice and politicking. Where the Constitution demanded impartiality, process, and respect for the office of former president, the government chose confrontation and political calculation. It caused the burial of a former president to be dragged into prolonged litigation in foreign courts, Zambia’s sovereignty was surrendered for expediency of subjecting a grieving family to extended anguish.
A government that upholds the Constitution does not allow matters of national protocol and dignity to be decided by emotion or partisan interest. It applies the written law fairly, even when it is difficult. On this matter, the government failed to do so.
The Constitution is supreme. It belongs to all Zambians. The government’s primary duty is to defend it. In the case of former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, that duty was abandoned.
Legistrature, the Executive, Judiciary and all institutions of state and government must now act in line with binding law so that every former president is treated in accordance with the Constitution, not according to the political mood of the day.
One Zambia, One Nation.
Issued by: Sakwiba Sikota SC
The whole and entire person and lawyer of sakwiba sikota to pretend and ignore that the same law he is citing, also says that when a former president decides to remain in politics, there would be no benefits. That is shameful and a lie sakwiba. You are a professional who should be truthful and objective in the what you cite as the law. Even if if it involves your eternal enemy HH, please give truths to the people of zambia and not just citing the part of law that is convinient for your politicking. Its callous, shameful and a toal lie. You are old now and need to sober up and at least state the truth. I am ashamed to have known you in life. Its disgusting. At least people know why the benefits that had initially bben given, were discontinued.