High Court in SA orders ECL body to return to Zambia
…the long turbulent journey of an African President
Amb. Anthony Mukwita wrote-
8 Jun 25.
On 5 June 2025, H.E Edgar Chagwa Lungu, Zambia’s sixth president, died in Pretoria, South Africa.
Today, 8 August, his body remains unburied. That’s 64 days of suspended mourning.
Sixty-four days of legal wrangling, political frost, and a family frozen in grief. In the Pretoria High Court today, the widow Esther Lungu sat draped in black, flanked by daughters Chiyesu, Tasila, son Daliso, and ECL’s only surviving elder sister, Bertha.
Their faces bore the fatigue of mourning too long. No tears left. Just silence. The kind that screams.
Then came the verdict: “The body of the sixth President of Zambia has to be repatriated to Lusaka, Zambia for final burial at Embassy Park where five others rest.” Just like that, the case seemed to be over. The spirit, however, is not.
H.E Edgar Lungu was born in Ndola in 1956, trained in law, and rose through the ranks to become Zambia’s President in 2015. He was not a man of bombast.
He was a man of bridges, literal and metaphorical. Roads, clinics, airports, and flyovers bore his signature. He believed in building, even when the economy buckled beneath debt and drought. Dr. Fred M’membe, a long-time friend and political rival, said it best: “Despite great political achievements, he remained the same ‘Mwana’ to me.
His humility made him acceptable to many of our people.” Lungu’s presidency was a paradox: a builder of infrastructure, yet accused of dismantling democratic norms by critics.
A man who commuted death sentences for hundreds. A leader who declared a National Day of Prayer, yet presided over economic challenges and booms.
But in death, the contradictions fade. What remains is the man. The father. The husband. The brother. The builder, the President.
AND ENTER THE COURT BATTLE FOR THE HEART ANF BODY OF ECL
The legal battle over Lungu’s burial reads like a tragic telenovela. The family wanted a private burial in South Africa. The government, led by Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha, insisted on repatriation to Embassy Park.
Kabesha, in a press briefing, said: “He went to South Africa for medical care. He was not a refugee. Morally, culturally, and spiritually, he must be buried in Zambia.” He added, with solemnity: “Let’s pray for the family to heal. There will be no winner or loser. The courts are simply giving us what is best.”
But the family feels defeated. Madam Esther Lungu returns to mourning. The body language in court said it all: shoulders slumped, eyes hollow, hands clenched not in anger but in resignation. The spirit refuses to die. The history grim.
Zambia has buried five presidents before: Kenneth Kaunda (died 17 June 2021), Frederick Chiluba (died 18 June 2011), Levy Mwanawasa (died 19 August 2008), Rupiah Banda (died 11 March 2022), and Michael Sata (died 28 October 2014).
Now Edgar Lungu joins them. But unlike the others, his final journey has been marred by political frost. His benefits were stripped. His travel restricted.
WHAT NEXT FOR ZAMBIA
His legacy (ECL) was contested. So what does this say about Zambia? It says we need a law, cast in stone, like Dodoma in Tanzania that governs the burial of presidents. Not court battles. Not injunctions. Just dignity.
There are lessons to learn from ECL’s treatment while alive and when dead.
First, respect must be institutionalized. Presidents should not depend on the goodwill of successors for dignity.
There must be legal guarantees. Second, death should not be a political battlefield.
The dead deserve peace. The living deserve closure. Third, legacy is built in life, cemented in death. H.E Lungu’s infrastructure may crumble, but his humility endures. His flaws were many like everyone else, but his humanity was real.
Today, the courtroom in Pretoria was packed with former officials from H.E Lungu’s era: Given Lubinda, Mutotwe Kafwaya, Joseph Malanji, Chanda Kabwe, Freedom Sikazwe, Brian Mundubile, many more.
Some from the previous administration, some not. All united in grief. It was a reunion of the fallen. A reminder that power is fleeting. That today’s king is tomorrow’s mourner.
The family lost a chance to bury their loved one in peace, the government appears to have scored a hail mail pass. Nobody won.
AND ENTER THE SA HIGH COURT
The courts gave a verdict, but not closure. And so we ask: How do we return to peace, unity, and love after ECL?
Perhaps we start by acknowledging the pain. By letting the widow mourn without politics. By letting the children cry without cameras. By letting the nation reflect without rancour.
Like Michael Jackson, Alexander the Great, and Kwame Nkrumah, H.E Edgar Lungu’s figure looms larger in death perhaps more than it did in life. His faults are softened. His virtues magnified. He was not perfect, no one is. But he was ours.
In Zambia, we say umupashi tawufwa, the spirit does not die. Today, that spirit sits in a courtroom in Pretoria. It walks through government offices.
It lingers at the airports and flyovers. It whispers in the dry eyes of a mourning widow. And it asks: Will Zambia learn? Will Zambia heal? Only time will tell. But for now, we mourn. We reflect. We remember. And we wait, or the burial. For the peace. For the spirit to rest.
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Amb. Anthony Mukwita is an International Relations Analyst & Author.