Death is Not Always Physical, and Laura Miti is Dead- Thandiwe Ketiš Ngoma

Death is Not Always Physical, and Laura Miti is Dead: The Edgar Lungu Funeral and Amai Doti’s Embarrassing Sycophancy for President Hichilema

By Thandiwe Ketiš Ngoma

Laura has become such a sycophantic and zealous praise singer for President Hakainde Hichilema that she can’t see anything wrong with his behaviour on any subject.

I sometimes fear that if President Hakainde Hichilema started undressing in public, Laura Miti would focus on his beautiful skin rather than his disturbing nakedness.

Her latest article on why President Lungu remains unburied, four months after his death, is such a classic defence of President Hichilema that it would make even the most hardcore UPND cadre envious of her insatiable appetite to bootlick.

Let us take what she says one by one.

We learn from her opening paragraph that the focus of Laura’s writing is not on why President Lungu remains unburied, but on mocking the reasons given by his family. Let us now listen to Laura, who has never criticised President Hakainde Hichilema in any way over the prolonged burial impasse.

Laura:
1.“Newborn- President Lungu left instructions that his body should be transported home in a private plane. His reasons were that he travelled for treatment as a private citizen, after the government had refused to evacuate him. So, he left strict instructions for his body to return the same way.”

Me: Of particular importance here is Laura’s failure to acknowledge that it was very strange for President Hichilema to show interest in transporting Lungu’s dead body when he had opposed his leaving the country for medical treatment. Any sane Zambian who follows current affairs would know the circumstances under which former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu left the country.

He had to escape Zambia, taking advantage of the arrival of the UN Special Rapporteur, to sneak onto the Airlink plane that was about to depart. The airport official who took the risk of aiding his escape for medical treatment, namely Paul Kasonde, who held the position of Manager for Aviation Security, was dismissed from his job for clearing President Lungu’s departure.

After his death in South Africa, we were informed by the family that his wish was that in the event he died while in South Africa, his remains should be returned to Zambia in the same manner that he left the country privately. What is problematic here is not the family’s decision to honour his wishes, but President Hakainde Hichilema’s interest in a dead Lungu to the point where he even sent a plane to collect his body before he called the family to convey his condolences.

What was urgent for President Hichilema was not mourning with the family or lightening their burden, but ensuring that the body of his predecessor was transported to Zambia in a government aircraft. Laura doesn’t see anything wrong with this shameful behaviour of President Hichilema. For her, the problem is the Lungu family’s desire to facilitate the return of their beloved one, now deceased, in the same manner that he had left the country using private means.

Laura:
2. “Toddler – President Lungu said he did not want his successor anywhere near his body. So President Hichilema must undertake to officiate the funeral while keeping a long distance from the body.”

Me: Here too, Laura mocks the Lungu family’s desire to honour his wishes that his successor should stay away from his funeral. She sees absolutely nothing wrong with President Hakainde Hichilema’s insistence that he must attend the funeral, thereby declaring himself as chief mourner.

Laura does not explain why President Hakainde Hichilema, who enjoyed no close relationship with former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, was suddenly struck by a bout of such uncontrollable love for his predecessor that he could not stay away from his funeral. Even the devil would be envious of the extent to which Laura is prepared to go in defence of President Hakainde Hichilema, the man she has publicly described as “the best president of Zambia ever.”

Laura:
3. “Teenager- The government changed the burial programme. They are also paving the road to Chifwema, meaning the route for the daily passage of the body from the residence to Mulungushi has been compromised.

Me: It is a fact that the government changed the burial programme without the involvement of the family. For instance, as part of his self-assigned designation as President Lungu’s chief mourner, President Hakainde Hichilema changed the programme to make sure that he would receive the body on arrival at KKIA Airport, take it away for 30 minutes to an unknown place within the airport terminals so that he could have a private moment with it, and ensure that no member of the public was allowed to view the body before him on the day that body viewing was to commence.

Laura doesn’t see anything wrong with this strange and fetish-like behaviour by her “best president of Zambia.” The problem, she would like us to believe, is the decision by the deceased’s family to take issue with HH’s odd and bizarre conduct.

It is also a fact that the government announced, at short notice, that the road to Chifwema, where President Lungu’s body was to lie in state for the duration of the mourning period, was to be closed for impromptu repairs. The Lungu family reacted as any normal people would, asking why the repairs were scheduled for the very period during which President Lungu’s body was to be taken to and from Mulungushi Conference Centre for body viewing.

Embarrassed by the exposure, the government rescheduled the road repairs to a later date, prompting the Lungu family to commit to bringing the body as scheduled. But the government again made alterations to the funeral programme, forcing the family to consider burying President Lungu in South Africa.

Again, Laura finds no issue with the conduct of the administration of her “best president,” including the fact that the said road repairs have never been resumed.

Laura:
4. “Adult –  We are going to bury in South Africa to ensure that we prevent President Hichilema from taking possession of the body, literally or figuratively.”

Me: The family’s decision to bury former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu in South Africa was made after the above-highlighted breaches of trust, which demonstrated more than anything else the determination by President Hakainde Hichilema to force himself onto a funeral where the grieving family had told him in very clear and unambiguous language that he was not welcome.

When the funeral was underway in South Africa, Laura’s “best president” moved to block it for one reason—that the burial was taking place without his involvement. Until this point, the family had not spent a cent or a ngwee of taxpayers’ money, but Laura’s “best president” dipped his fingers into the public coffers to prevent the family from burying President Lungu where and how they wanted, simply to enforce his wish to be the chief mourner and access the body.

Laura, a historian (yes, Laura’s educational qualifications consist of a BA in Education and an MA in History) turned public accountability activist, finds nothing wrong with this wastage of potentially millions of kwacha of public funds aimed at meeting the individual desire of her “best president” to be the chief mourner.

By millions, I am referring to the money being spent by the administration of Laura’s “best president” on flying his officials such as Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha and Secretary to the Cabinet Patrick Kangwa to and from South Africa, and on paying private South African lawyers representing the wannabe chief mourner’s regime.

Laura:
5. “Senile – The Secretary to the Cabinet has not written us the letter we want. The letter is to state to us that the accusation we made is untrue. The accusation we want denied, in writing, is that the Zambian government, through a group that did not include a single Zambian, and that, according to us, appeared at the mortuary, tried to carry out a post-mortem on President Lungu’s body. The post-mortem was to prove or disprove the claim, made by some random South African group, that he was poisoned.”

Me: Here, Laura finds nothing wrong with the failure by the Secretary to the Cabinet to commit to paper what he was telling the Lungu family on the phone—that Laura’s “best president” had nothing to do with the private investigator who popped up at the morgue, claiming that he had been contracted by the administration of Laura’s “best president” to secure access to the body.

Any sane adult would be troubled by the behaviour of the Secretary to the Cabinet. Why would anyone refuse to formally distance the government from claims that it had hired the private investigator to determine whether the former president was poisoned, if indeed the investigator was lying?

Even a child from Bweengwa can easily see that Patrick Kangwa, the Secretary to the Cabinet, was engaged in a cover-up and did not want to formally deny what could easily be proved to be true—that the private investigator is indeed an agent of Laura’s “best president.”

Laura has no problem with the revelation of her “best president’s” clandestine activities. Neither does she have any problem with the fact that the same government whose spokesperson had ruled out any foul play in President Lungu’s death only days after his demise is now wasting more taxpayers’ money hiring private investigators to establish if there was foul play in President Lungu’s death.

For Laura, the problem is the family—and we must all condemn them.

Conclusion

There is a lesson to be learnt from all this, and that is: it is how we end that matters. Having carved out a name for herself as a civil rights activist and human rights defender, Laura Miti has, since the election of President Hakainde Hichilema, turned into the very thing she spent decades fighting—an apologist for injustice, a defender of wrong, and a protector of those who abuse and torment the weak.

Not once since former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu died has Laura publicly shown empathy for the deceased’s family or expressed sympathy for their plight. This is a family that is yet to bury their loved one nearly five months after his death because of her “best president’s” refusal to stay away from the funeral.

Rather than asking her “best president” to leave the family alone so that they can bury their loved one as they wish, Laura is tormenting them even further and adding to their misery by mocking them.

Whatever incentive Laura’s “best president” has given her to make her immune from seeing his failings—including the cruel manner in which he has handled the funeral—must be greater than her previous reputation as someone outraged by injustice, who always took the side of the disadvantaged and the weak in any struggle with the powerful.

If my children were to ask me one thing that they must never be in life, my answer, even when woken up from sleep, would be instant: let them never be like Laura Miti.

I weep for the former Laura Miti we have lost to Hichilema. May her praise-singing soul rest in peace.
Amen.
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