Fred M’membe, Edgar Lungu, and HH
… ‘Zambia’s Ghost in the Fridge’
Amb. AM 25 Feb 26.
I write with a heavy heart and biting satire, for Zambia today stands mocked by its own silence on the sixth President Edgar Lungu, who died in Pretoria last June.
But one man called Dr. Fred M’membe has shattered the silence today, away from the usual suspects, and he has a loud voice on the matter.
The ghost of Edgar Chagwa Lungu, who remains trapped in a refrigerator via a Zambia government court action, while the widow Esther Lungu’s tears have long dried into sorrowful dust.
Fred M’membe, valiant and intrepid as ever, has broken the silence.
His two-minute TikTok monologue, spoken in the raw cadence of local language, has shattered internet numbers in Zambia and beyond.
It is deeply viral, deeply uncomfortable, and deeply human. “Hakainde Hichilema (President of Zambia), nkalako nachifundo…release that body so that Edgar’s family can bury him,” he pleads, close to tears.
In English: “Please (Mr. President) have a heart. It’s going to be nine months since Edgar Lungu died, and his corpse remains trapped in a refrigerator.”
This is not just a plea; it is a chivalrous act of bravery in a land where cyber laws have jailed citizens for jokes. M’membe has gone to prison myriad times before, from his days at The Post to his leadership of the Socialist Party.
But today, he hit the pedal to the metal, daring to ask the most powerful man in the land, the President: What do you seek from Edgar Lungu’s dead body?
The irony is unbearable. Zambia, a self-proclaimed Christian nation, now jails a corpse. A country that builds bridges, airports, and schools cannot find the courage to bury its own president.
International leaders whisper concern, while citizens scroll in silence, afraid of arrests.
Nostalgia has made Lungu more popular in death than any president since independence in Zambia, likened to Alexander the Great, yet his body remains frozen, a ghost five months before crucial polls.
Fred’s monologue is anecdotal yet monumental. It is the first loud voice in a nation of whispers, a lament that mocks our hypocrisy.
His words cut through fear: “This action is tantamount to jailing a corpse of your friend.” And indeed, what kind of heart does it take to keep a man in a fridge for nine months? Fred asks the government.
The Spanish poet Antonio Machado once wrote: “En el corazón de todos los inviernos vive una primavera palpitante, y detrás de cada noche, viene una aurora sonriente.”
Yet here in Zambia, winter lingers, spring is denied, and the aurora of burial is frozen. The dead wait, the living fear, and the silence is deafening.
My last short essay on Edgar Lungu racked up 670,000 organic numbers in just 12 hours. This one may surpass it, for the ghost of ECL refuses to rest, and Fred M’membe’s voice refuses to be silenced.
Here’s Fred in local lingua franca: “Hakainde Hichilema nkalako nachifundo kwata umutima uwabuntu leko munobe aye atusheko, yalakwana nine months ichitumbi Chagwa Edgar Lungu chichili mu fridge ichichimo nokukaka ichitumbi watwala ichitumbi chamunobe mu fridge for nine months wakwata umutima washani release that body so that Edgar’s family can bury him,” Dr. M’membe says in the vid gone hugely viral.
Zambia’s shame is not just the unburied body, but the hypocrisy of fear, the cowardice of silence, and the mockery of a Christian nation that cannot grant dignity to a dead President.
The ghost of Edgar Lungu haunts us still.
And Fred M’membe, with sorrow and satire, has reminded us that courage is not in power, but in speaking truth to it.
May ECL’s frozen spirit rest in peace.
HH is nowhere near the ECL issue. Makebi dribbled the family into childish defiance nomba bafwila muli mwamoneni.
Leave HH alone. We the nation want to confirm the man’s body is authentically his not a Zimbabwean.
It’s not HH it’s citizens. All of these people are flogging a wrong horse. Now Zambians have moved on with their lives.
Mwebene you were told by the south African highest court to follow the law not short cuts. You were given an opportunity to resolve the burial question with government but you chose obstinacy not reason until you scored in your own goal by claiming poisoning.
South Africa has now come in to verify your claims and even then mwakana DNA authentication of the body. How can SAPS pursue the truth without confirming identity of the subject body? Are you normal????
Shaleni nobupuba bwenu. Leave innocent HH out of your pea brain rantings. Twanaka naimwe.