Hichilema should be obsessed with solving problems that affect the living, not indulging in this unhealthy obsession with a dead dictator- Hopewell Chinono

Hopewell Chinono writes….

I didn’t want to weigh into this embarrassing Zambian drama and fascination with dead bodies beyond straightforward reporting, but since many people are asking for my view, I will share it.

When you are an unprincipled man or woman who simply follows the wind, you end up doing what one of my friends recently did.

When former Zambian president Edgar Lungu’s family decided to bury him in South Africa, my friend said he did not care because Lungu was a dictator. “They can bury him in the bush, I don’t care.”

Now that Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema is trying to use the South African courts to have Lungu’s body buried in Zambia, the same friend is suddenly supporting the process, saying Lungu belongs to Zambia, yada-yada.

I told him that this is exactly the disaster that holds Africa back—supporting people instead of ideas.
I would not care if the same was done to Kaunda’s family, because Hichilema was elected on a promise to break with the past. He was supposed to be a change and transformational president. That he ain’t!

People who follow personalities instead of principles never make it in the real world. To survive, they need to lick someone’s backside. They are an embarrassment to rational thinking society. And I told my Zambian friends whom I have known for 36 years.

Zambia has a cadre problem, where political parties have groups of people who follow blindly without thinking. These cadres are used on social media to terrorise and abuse, and are also used as thugs on the streets.
These cadres attack even senior African journalists like myself for merely reporting hard news about this case.

They are deranged! You will see them in the comments section of this article asking me to stick to Zimbabwean issues, saying I should shut up because Zimbabwe is worse than Zambia. They are predictable yet their party of choice was elected as the change agent.

During this drama, I spoke to two sitting African presidents and one former president. They were disgusted by the whole saga and said Zambia has a strange obsession with fighting over the corpses of former presidents.

They said the wishes of former presidents Levy Mwanawasa and Kenneth Kaunda were both violated because of this morbid desire to dominate families.
Both Mwanawasa and Kaunda left instructions that they wanted to be buried at their farms, Kaunda wanted to be buried to his dear Betty. These wishes were violated in pursuit of cheap political goals.

These African leaders I spoke to also said they had expected better from HH. Sadly, he has turned out to be no different, and some of his cadres lack the emotional intelligence to see how embarrassing and degrading this is for Zambia.
They argue that Lungu mistreated him. Hichilema himself is telling anyone who will listen how badly Lungu treated him.

But what has that got to do with repeating the same behaviour and fixating on the past? He was elected to better the lives of the living not the dead who have made their own choices.

Zambia is a very poor country, and its people are poverty-stricken. President Hichilema should be obsessed with solving problems that affect the living, not indulging in this unhealthy obsession with a dead dictator.

The kwacha has sharply depreciated, fuelling inflation and making basic goods unaffordable for ordinary citizens. Life is hard in Zambia for ordinary people today.
A severe drought has crippled hydroelectric production at Lake Kariba, leading to widespread blackouts and devastating agricultural yields, which in turn have worsened food insecurity and driven up prices. I said this in the morning and I will repeat it again.

The crisis is compounded by environmental disasters such as the recent mine waste spill into the Kafue River, which threatens water supplies for millions, and ongoing public health threats like cholera. These are immediate issues that require solutions through leadership.

Corruption remains rampant in Zambia, with international donors cutting aid after scandals involving stolen medical supplies. Hichilema was meant to be the panacea for all this, but he has failed his people.
At the same time, public trust in institutions is eroding, as the government faces accusations of authoritarianism after a recent scathing report by the United Nations human rights arm, including opposition arrests and judicial interference.

With youth unemployment high and confidence in the country’s direction collapsing, the Zambian government must act swiftly to stabilise the economy, restore electricity and food systems, uphold the rule of law, and regain the trust of both its citizens and the international community.

Edgar Lungu, who was himself a failed president, should not be a priority for a nation in crisis. Let his family bury him in South Africa. Hichilema must worry about the living, not the dead.

Now both sides are working overtime to taint each other with propaganda. One side claims that Lungu was using a Zimbabwean passport, while the other alleges there is a sangoma waiting to perform rituals on his body. They allege that when the government side heard there would be no body viewing—so they ran to court.

It is all deeply embarrassing and causing major damage to brand Zambia. Stop it. You are embarrassing us.

While politicians squabble over a dead man’s bones, a child in Kafue is drinking poisoned water, a mother in Mongu is giving birth by candlelight, and a father in Chipata is going to bed hungry after failing to feed his family—this is the Zambia that is being forgotten.