A Coffin Full of Secrets: How the Lungu Family Turned Death Into a Shield for Their Crimes
By Farai Ruvanyathi
14th July 2025
A court affidavit filed by Esther Lungu has finally unmasked the true reason behind the Lungu family’s insistence on burying the late President Edgar Lungu in South Africa.
It turns out, this has little, if anything, to do with his alleged “wish for privacy,” a claim for which no credible evidence has ever been presented.
A FAMILY SHROUDED IN SECRETS
Protecting Wealth, Not Honour
The motive was always clear to those paying attention. In an interview with Voice of America, Edgar Lungu himself admitted that his return to active politics was to shield his family from mounting legal scrutiny over their unexplained wealth.
Soon after leaving office, Esther Lungu entrusted her niece with US$400,000 in cash, an enormous sum by any standard, for “safe keeping.” When she later demanded it back, the niece, who now had a new car and house but no cash, was allegedly abducted and forced to hand over her property titles and vehicle.
This was not a government investigation but a private feud within the Lungu family that ended up in police hands.
When law enforcement intervened, Edgar Lungu directed his anger not at his wife’s niece, the complainant , but at President Hichilema, exposing his real concern: protecting the family’s wealth at all costs.
A CORPSE AS A SHIELD
Burying Justice Alongside the Body
Even in death, the family appears to have continued Edgar Lungu’s mission to shield them from accountability.
By insisting on burying him in South Africa, they crafted a perfect excuse to remain there in self-imposed exile, claiming proximity to his grave while conveniently avoiding court appearances in Zambia.
This legal strategy, reportedly advised by someone with legal expertise, buys them time to wait for a more sympathetic government, one that would drop the charges and investigations, allowing them to keep their ill-gotten wealth.
THE COST TO ZAMBIANS
Who Really Pays the Price?
The Lungus’ wealth was not accumulated from thin air. It came at the expense of Zambian citizens, diverted from school desks, hospitals, jobs, and critical infrastructure.
The taxes Zambians pay today are partly to service debts that financed this obscene enrichment of a single family.
This is not about President Hichilema or any single official; it is about the Zambian people, who have every right to demand accountability and justice.
THE FINAL REVEAL
Seeking Asylum, Not Privacy
When the Zambian Attorney General challenged the burial in South Africa, the family’s real plan surfaced: they are seeking political asylum in South Africa, with no intention of returning to face justice in Zambia.
We must ask: if Edgar Lungu had died in UTH or Maina Soko Military Hospital, would the family have flown his body out in the name of privacy? Or was this always a calculated move to turn his death into their shield?
QUESTIONS FOR SOUTH AFRICA AND ZAMBIA
Can We Allow This?
Should poor Zambians be robbed of their collective wealth so a criminal enterprise can hide behind a coffin?
Does it sit well with South African citizens, among the most informed and justice-conscious people in the world, that their country is being used as a haven by a family accused of plundering a neighbouring nation?
Is this the culture we want to promote: where families of public officials become overnight millionaires, then manipulate national tragedies to protect themselves?
The Lungu family’s intentions are now exposed. This is no longer just a legal battle, it is a moral reckoning.
Zambians, and indeed South Africans, must decide:
Will we allow the misuse of a dead man’s body to perpetuate theft, impunity, and injustice?
The late Edgar Lungu’s grave cannot become a sanctuary for injustice. A nation’s stolen wealth cannot be buried alongside his remains, nor can South Africa be complicit in sheltering a family that betrayed the trust of millions.
Zambians must demand accountability, and South Africans must reject being hosts to a criminal enterprise disguised as mourners. A coffin should carry a body, not a cover-up. It is time for both nations to choose justice over deceipt.
Another one of the fakes, Farai Ruvanyathi , just like Magret Mwanza, Rogue Characters sponsored by the Man, using fake Names – the deceivers and fraudulent purveyors of Hatred and Abuse.
The Man abused the late ECL when alive.
Give the Lungu family peace..
And they will bury their father, Husband, Grandfather in dignity, away from Hypocrisy, Dishonesty, Untruths, Insincerity and Crocodile Tears.
Begone Satanic Authors of useless articles..
People know the desk where you operate from…A desk of Imingalato, where not even the dead are spared.
Whatever it costs,we still demand for justice,we want ECL family to tell the Zambians through the the courts on how they got all such monies? Nothing else.If they so wish,then they can proceed and denounce their status as Zambians,it doesn’t bother us.We voted ECL out because he became too selfish and couldn’t protect the national treasure,we are going to mourn with the family but we still need what belongs to the nation back and they have to prove their innocence.
This one is talking sense !!!
The LUNGU’S are so embarrassed as we are talking.
They don’t know what to do with wealth!!! It will be rough and tough for them soon!!
Let them unZambian themselves. We have no interest in them, they are u
Exactly what I have been thinking! If the South African government hasn’t seen through this facade then, it’s leadership is corrupt and shouldn’t be in power. To start with if the stories of the Lungu family owning 50 homes in an opulent South Africa suburb and 100 luxurious vehicles, the South African government will need to explain how that loot got into South African real estate and vehicles. Additionally, simply buying an estate in a nation can not give you the express authority live and bury a former President and let alone permanent residency. The process and morality, ethics and integrity of achieving all these matter. It’s not a matter of getting a lawyer without ethics and pushing things wrongly. Now we’re not even sure if Lungu is dead going by the story that only a Zimbabwean died at the said clinic. South Africa with all it’s questionable morality on Israel. Zambia and South Africans will need to sue the South African government for real justice. We are reminded of Thabo Bester’s escape from prison and South Africans who have been scammed of IDs and shockly declared dead while still living. These issues can not stop if government continued to conduct itself in this manner.
This is the best article and analysis of the LUNGU saga i have come across so far.They even gave false reasons such as ,HH to see the body,cadres not allowed at the airport,secret service at the airport,the road to the funeral home being worked upon ,therefore the Government not abiding with the agreement they had in south Africa.
When they knew all along that the idea was to bury in south Africa and never to come back to Zambia
Well said. The very shallow reasons given at every turn to try get the body to Zambia by ECL family was way shocking. Lies have short legs. Soon the court will make a decision and ultimately something is gonna have to give. There is still time for ECL’s family to end this graciously. If the court doesn’t decide their way, the optics & their “credibility” on this matter will be severely tainted.
What an excellent and accurate article. It resonates well with what is coming out coz a lot was not adding up. Truth is so stubborn, no matter how long it takes to come out, it eventually pops out. “Ifilala fya munda yanama.”