🧊 Frozen at 68: Edgar Lungu’s Birthday in a Fridge
Amb. Anthony Mukwita reflections
Author of Against All Odds: Edgar Lungu’s Rough Journey to State House
Preview for 11 November 2025.
Tomorrow, Edgar Chagwa Lungu would have turned 68. Instead of cake and his famously awkward funky chicken dance beside doting wife Esther Nyawa Lungu, he lies frozen in a South African morgue—boxed in a commercial fridge roughly 6 feet long, 2.5 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. A coffin of cold steel. A cage of bureaucracy.
About half a year after his death, Zambia’s sixth president remains unburied. His restless spirit circles between Lusaka and Pretoria, trapped in a diplomatic tug-of-war that has robbed him of rest, and robbed Zambia of closure. No dignity.
Born to Padule Saili Lungu and Tasila Jere, Edgar rose from Chimwemwe’s dust to command a nation and occupy State House.
He built roads, hospitals, and hope. He gave jobs to rivals, corn to the hungry, and dignity to the poor through an enhanced social cash transfer.
Edgar laughed easily, danced clumsily, and once ate a mango on the street, joking, and “I don’t think anyone wants me dead.” But death came. And now, it lingers.
His widow Esther pleads, “He is my man, my hubby. I want to bury him.” But the state insists on full honours.
Why now? Why the sudden embrace of a man they once barred from travel?
Like Emperor Henry IV, denied burial for political reasons, Edgar Lungu’s fate echoes history’s cruellest ironies. He preached unity, prayer, and peace.
Yet in death, he is denied all three.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness.” — Desmond Tutu.
Let this birthday be a turning point. Not for pomp. Not for politics. But for peace. Lest we forget as Rudyard Kipling once said.
🕯️ Look out tomorrow: “ECL Birthday in a Fridge” by Amb. Anthony Mukwita, author, Against all Odds, Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu’s Rough Journey to State House. Available in Bookworld & Amazon.
A tear-jerker for a nation waiting to bury its son. MHSRIP—not in a fridge.
Such Articles just stir up Citizen’s emotions, unnecessarily so. I wish this sensitive matter could be left to be dealt with by the rightful people handling it: The ECL Family, GRZ and RSA Courts. The rest of us are just toxic Noise Makers.