Why Zambia’s former president remains unburied 8 months after his death

By Sishuwa Sishuwa

Zambia’s only surviving former president Edgar Lungu died in South Africa on 5 June 2025. Eight months later, Lungu remains unburied and in a Johannesburg morgue for reasons that range from the bad blood between him and his successor Hakainde Hichilema to superstition and politics. Below, I provide answers to frequently asked questions that may provide understanding to anyone interested.

What is the latest status of the ongoing litigation in South Africa?

To recap: On 24 June 2025, hours before Lungu was set to be buried in South Africa, Zambia’s Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha successfully applied for an interdict (injunction) in the Pretoria High Court, seeking to stop the burial and to repatriate his remains to Lusaka. Kabesha argued that the court action was motivated by the need to accord Lungu a state funeral with full military honours, a precedent from a previous court ruling in Zambia involving the family of Kenneth Kaunda against the State, and public interest. Following trial that run until August, the High Court ruled in favour of the government – that the former president be repatriated to Zambia for burial. The Court further ordered that Lungu’s body be grabbed from his family and handed over to the Zambian High Commission in Pretoria for storage and onward transition to Lusaka.

The family, citing errors in the High Court’s assessment of the facts, issues, and law, rejected the ruling and, as per procedure, asked for leave to refer the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal for review. For instance, the family argues that the judgment was defective because the judges relied on an inapplicable case involving former president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda (more on this later), chose to enforce purported Zambian law without independent witness testimony from a professional expert of the laws of Zambia, and even granted reliefs to the government that were neither sought nor part of the initial agreement between the two parties.

The High Court rejected the application to allow the family permission to appeal against its verdict. This prompted the family to ask the Supreme Court of Appeal to review the lower court’s refusal. In late December 2025, the Supreme Court granted the family leave to appeal against the High Court’s decision, and the family has until 16 February this year to file its arguments after which the Zambian government would have the opportunity to respond. The effect of these ongoing legal processes is that until the appeal matters are conclusively decided by the courts, the body of Lungu remains in South Africa and in the custody of the family.

Once the Supreme Court decides the matter, whoever loses the case has recourse to appeal to the Constitutional Court, South Africa’s apex court, should they be dissatisfied with the ruling. This means the resolution of Lungu’s burial is far from over – unless the Zambian government steps aside to allow the family to do as they please (more on this later).

It is worth noting that in addition to the court’s failure to determine who between the state and the family has the right over the body of a deceased person, the family’s appeal against the High Court’s decision was unsurprising in part because during the trial, a Zambian cabinet minister and a member of parliament who works closely with Hichilema were heard in a leaked audio conversation boasting that the judges hearing the matter had been bribed to rule in favour of the State. Several officials including Hichilema and the head of the country’s intelligence services were implicated in this scheme, one that the government did not dismiss.

It is fair to say that Lungu and Hichilema were not friends. What was the basis for the apparently extreme animosity between them?

The extreme animosity between Lungu and Hichilema can be traced back to Zambia’s 2016 election that was won by then President Lungu. Hichilema argued that the election had been stolen from him and, after his legal challenge was dismissed on a technicality, refused to recognise Lungu’s presidency, believing it was illegitimate. This adversely bruised Lungu’s ego and contributed to the arrest of the then main opposition leader in April 2017 after Hichilema’s convoy failed to give way to the president’s motorcade, which was heading in the same direction.

What a dispassionate observer may have regarded as a possible violation of traffic rules or presidential protocol was soon inflated into a treason charge. Hichilema was violently arrested and was to spend the next four months in detention before his release in August after the case was discontinued following domestic and international pressure. This ill-treatment left a bitter taste in the mouth of Hichilema who, following his election in 2021, engaged in what may be considered acts of retribution. The president and his officials spoke ill of Lungu, who had left active politics following his defeat, at every opportunity, restricted his free movement domestically and when trying to travel abroad for conferences, arrested his family members including the wife and children, grabbed his political party before imposing a pliant leadership on it, and prevented him from leaving the country to seek medical treatment, even when this was one of his legal entitlements as former president.

In response, Lungu made a political comeback in October 2023, but Hichilema, after reconstituting the Constitutional Court, used his supporters and the new judges to get Lungu barred from standing in any future election. As his health deteriorated, Lungu managed to escape to South Africa in January 2025 for medical attention and the government responded by sacking the top airport official who aided his exit. This meant that by the time Lungu died in June 2025, the poor relationship between the two leaders had not been resolved.

What exactly is the matter at stake in this dispute between family and Zambian government?

The sticking point between the two parties is the refusal by President Hichilema to excuse himself from Lungu’s funeral and delegate authority. After Lungu died, the family disclosed that the deceased had told them that in the event of his death, and largely because of how poorly he felt Hichilema’s administration had treated him in life, he did not want his successor anywhere near his body or funeral. Instead of making a public commitment that the president would stay away from any funeral related events out of respect for the grieving family, the government disregarded the family’s wish by drawing up a funeral programme that showed Hichilema as the lead actor at nearly every stage — from receiving the body at the airport to being the first one to view it before any member of the public does so.

It is worth noting that the death of Lungu is primarily a family issue and the family should have been allowed to have a final say on all matters relating to the disposal of his remains. There is no statute in Zambia that allows the state to have the final say on the funeral of any person, including a former president. What the president should have done is to facilitate the wishes of the family to be realised. I do not understand what is preventing Hichilema from publicly committing that he will be nowhere near the body or the funeral of Lungu, as requested by the deceased through his grieving family. It is bizarre and illogical to force oneself onto a funeral programme where the grieving family has explicitly told you that your presence is unwelcome.

When Lungu’s family made it clear that his participation was unwelcome, Hichilema should have delegated the responsibility of officiating at the funeral to another official such as Vice-president Mutale Nalumango. By insisting that the task of presiding over the funeral should only be carried out by him and nobody else, the president demonstrated poor judgement. It was his failure to publicly pledge that he would not attend Lungu’s funeral that forced the family to consider burying him outside Zambia. And when he did not get his way on the matter, the president, acting as if he has undisclosed personal interest in the funeral of his predecessor, instructed the Attorney General to move South African courts to block the burial from taking place without him. As a result of this ongoing court process, the late former president remains in a Johannesburg morgue more than eight months after his demise, prolonging the anguish of his family.

If Lungu had lived, would he have run for president this year?

Lungu would not have run for president this year because Hichilema, fearful of his predecessor’s candidature, had used his supporters to have Lungu disqualified from standing in any future election before he died. To give context: Lungu had initially retired from politics in August 2021, but made a political comeback in October 2023, seeking to capitalise on growing dissatisfaction with his successor. A few days later, a ruling party activist petitioned the Constitutional Court, seeking a declaration that Lungu is not eligible to stand in any future election because of the constitutional two-term limit.

The same court has ruled on three previous occasions, including just before the 2021 election when I sued him, that Lungu is eligible because his first term of office, which lasted for 18 months after he took over following the death of the previous elected president, did not count as a full term. Before the case was heard in 2024, Hichilema appointed four new judges to the court and fired three of those who had previously ruled in Lungu’s favour. With the court reconstituted, Hichilema got his way: the judges he appointed delivered a favourable verdict that excluded Lungu from the 2026 election.

Although he was legally barred from running for presidential office, Lungu, who still commanded significant influence among his supporters, was, before his death, planning to endorse another candidate. This could have affected the outcome of this year’s election.

To what extent is the ongoing row over Lungu’s burial anchored on spiritual warfare or beliefs in the occult?

Given Hichilema’s bizarre refusal to publicly excuse himself from the funeral of his predecessor and delegate authority, it is difficult to completely rule out the role of occult beliefs by either side in this prolonged standoff. In fact, what has happened so far renders credence to the idea that the fight is more about superstition rather than politics. To state this opinion is not to express my belief in the occult or to assert with confidence that Hichilema practices occultism; it is to acknowledge a sticky point that sems to be the heart of the standoff between the family and Hichilema when it comes to the funeral of the late former president.

The family, going by the utterances that were publicly made by the sister to the deceased, seems to firmly believe that there are items from Lungu’s body that may be taken for ritual purposes by Hichilema if the President is anywhere near the corpse or if it is left, even briefly, in the sole custody of the state. There also appears to be a general belief that Lungu may have been eliminated by actors linked to the State, one that is accompanied by another belief: that individuals who may have contributed to his death are set follow him to the grave imminently if they do not see his body unless certain rituals are done to immunise themselves, using his body items, from premature departure from the Earth.

The belief that the president may be involved in the death of his predecessor and, if true, the consequences that may follow him appears to explain two contradictory positions. On the one hand, nearly everything done by the Lungu family so far seems to have been designed to deny Hichilema access to Lungu’s body. On the other, Hichilema’s conduct so far suggests that he will do whatever it takes to secure access to Lungu’s corpse, perhaps because the president sees the issue as a matter of life and death. A review of the evolving developments that have followed Lungu’s demise supports these observations.

After Lungu died, a prominent Zambian journalist, Dingindaba Jonah Buyoya, reported that government agents had unsuccessfully attempted to steal Lungu’s corpse from the South African mortuary where it was kept. In addition to prompting the Lungu family to move the corpse to a more secure place, this action fed public speculation that the agents might have been sent by Hichilema. The government’s failure to distance itself from the reported attempt to capture Lungu’s corpse only fuelled the speculation.

This action also did little to improve the suspicion between the government and the Lungu family, especially in relation to the then discussions on how Lungu’s remains were to be transported to Zambia and the funeral programme. However, following protracted negotiations, the two parties reached a compromise consisting of several commitments, five of which appear to be connected to the stated beliefs.

One was that Lungu’s body would be taken back to Zambia by the family on 18 June 2025 using a private charter made available by well-wishers. This indicates possible fear by the family that a government aircraft could enable Hichilema or his agents to remove certain items from Lungu’s body for occultic goals. The second commitment was that on arrival at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Lusaka, the body was to be received by family members and accorded military honours before being taken to the family’s private residence where it was to lie in state. Hichilema’s presence at the airport was not part of the agreement.

The third was that on 19, 20, and 21 June, the body would be taken to a designated venue, Mulungushi International Conference Centre, in Lusaka, to enable members of the public view the remains of the former president between 9am and 4pm. It was to be returned to Lungu’s residence daily at the conclusion of each session. The fourth was that Hichilema would be allowed to preside over the state funeral involving foreign dignitaries on 22 June, but there was no clear indication on whether the body was to be made available for this event. The willingness to allow Hichilema to preside over the funeral demonstrated a compromise on the part of the Lungu family. It was also agreed that the Catholic Archbishop of Lusaka Diocese, Alick Banda, was to preside over the church service that was to be held at the Lusaka Showgrounds on 23 June, the day of burial. Finally, until the day of burial, the body was to be accompanied at all times by three people when outside Lungu’s residence: the late president’s Aide-De-Camp, his personal physician, and a member of the family.

A day before Lungu’s remains were to leave South Africa, a Zambian government agency announced that the road that partly leads to Lungu’s residence would be closed for road maintenance for a period of one week. This action was generally seen by the Lungu family as an attempt by the authorities to create the pretext needed to keep Lungu’s body in a government-controlled facility where the items for occultic use could be extracted. After protest from the family, the government rescheduled the roadworks to a later date. Next, the government, without consulting the Lungu family, released the funeral programme that contained four elements that drew further protests from the family.

The first element was that Hichilema would be the one to formally receive Lungu’s body at the airport. The second was the insertion of a brief church service at the presidential pavilion within the airport terminal before the body was taken away. This service was to be presided over by an unknown religious leader chosen by the government, but certainly not Archbishop Banda.

The third was the decision by the government to effectively ban members of the public from going to the airport to receive Lungu’s remains by limiting attendance to only those invited by the authorities. On the day when the body was set to arrive in Lusaka, hundreds of police officers were lined up on the airport road to give effect to this ban, a clear departure from precedent.

For instance, when President Levy Mwanawasa died abroad in 2008, thousands of Zambians thronged the airport without any restrictions to receive the corpse. The same was the case after President Michael Sata died in the United Kingdom in 2014. The move by the Hichilema administration to block people from receiving the corpse, alongside militarisation of the airport premises, displeased the family and worsened public suspicion around the arrival of the body. The fourth element was the notice by the government that Hichilema was to be the first person to view the corpse when body viewing opened to members of the public on 19 June.

All these additions were not agreed with the family and generally seen as aimed at enabling Hichilema to access Lungu’s corpse. Taken together, these unilateral decisions or violations of the agreement, alongside Hichilema’s refusal to delegate authority to anyone such as Vice-President Mutale Nalumango or Secretary to Cabinet Patrick Kangwa to preside over the funeral of his predecessor, are what prompted the Lungu family to decide that they would rather bury the former president in South Africa via a private ceremony and only exhume his remains for reburial in Zambia once Hichilema is out of office. The subsequent decision by Hichilema’s administration to block the funeral that was already underway in Johannesburg only served to reinforce public suspicion that what was happening was spiritual warfare.

As a general point, it is worth emphasising that within certain segments of Zambian society, there is a strong belief in occult practices and the notion that power, misfortune, or protection may be manipulated through the remains of the dead. In this context, fears that parts of Lungu’s body could be used for ritualistic purposes if the state gained control over the corpse have featured prominently in both private and public discourse. To restate: this belief is not asserted here as fact, nor is it suggested that President Hichilema subscribes to or practices occultism. In fact, I do not believe in the occult. However, what matters for the purpose of this analysis is that these beliefs appear to be real and consequential to the actors involved, shaping decisions on both sides of the dispute.

For example, the family’s insistence on always guarding the body, chartering a private aircraft for its transportation to Lusaka, and resisting government-led funeral arrangements may be interpreted as precautionary actions rooted in these fears. Even the family’s court-endorsed decision that no one should secure access to Lungu’s body throughout the ongoing court proceedings without their authorisation is rooted in the same fears. Similarly, Hichilema’s apparent determination to secure access to the body, despite the family’s objections, has further fuelled public suspicion, particularly in a society where past political transitions have often been accompanied by accusations of spiritual warfare.

If these beliefs are indeed guiding decisions on both sides, then the government’s court action may be seen not simply as a matter of legal or national protocol, but as an attempt to overcome what it perceives to be irrational resistance based on superstition. Conversely, the family may view the state’s actions as confirmation of their fears. This tension between public authority and private belief creates a volatile mixture of legal, political, and cultural dynamics, without requiring that the analyst, or any rational observer, believe in the supernatural claims themselves.

It is possible that Hichilema is entirely innocent of the allegations that he plans to use Lungu’s body for ritual purposes but his refusal to pledge to stay away from the funeral has only fuelled rumours that his actions may be connected to witchcraft practices. Seen from this perspective, the legal action by the Zambian government in South Africa can be interpreted as an attempt by Hichilema to use not only public resources for private gain but also ‘public interest’ as a cover for securing the repatriation of Lungu’s body to Zambia where the State can bulldoze its way over the family and enable the President or his agents to access it. Hichilema’s repeated attempts to present himself as a devoted Christian who does not believe in witchcraft rings hollow when one considers that his refusal to excuse himself from Lungu’s funeral offends Christian norms and that two men were recently imprisoned after the government complained that the duo was plotting to kill the president using witchcraft.

Are the government’s reasons for insisting on a state funeral – that Lungu merits one as a former president – convincing? Can there be a compelling reason for a protracted but undignified fight over ownership of a dead body when elections are months away?

The government’s reasons for insisting that Lungu merits a state funeral collapse in the face of scrutiny. The first argument is that Lungu should be buried in Zambia because he deserves a state funeral. This reason is not supported by law. In Zambia, a state funeral is not a legal requirement or an entitlement; it is an honour accorded by a sitting president, using his or her discretion, to individuals considered worthy of it. The recipient or their representatives have the freedom to accept or reject such honours.

And if the objective is to accord Lungu a state funeral, the president could have done so without making his presence a precondition for granting that honour to his predecessor. The state is a system, not an individual, and Hichilema, if he has no personal interest in the funeral, could have easily delegated authority to another official who is acceptable to the family to represent him. The family is not opposed to having Lungu accorded a state funeral; they are only opposed to the involvement of Hichilema in any form in the funeral. This is the sticky point.

The second argument is that Lungu should be buried in Zambia because there is a precedent that supports the State’s legal action, namely, the matter involving the family of former president Kenneth Kaunda against the State. This reason is equally defective for three reasons. One is that at the time he died, Kaunda was still enjoying the benefits accorded to former presidents by law, including funeral expenses covered by the state. This was not the case with Lungu, who, by operation of law, had lost his benefits after he returned to active politics in 2023.

Two is that the legal involvement of the state in the funeral of a former president is only limited to covering their funeral expenses. Even this point does not apply to Lungu, who had lost his legal benefits withdrawn at the time of his death. This explains why the family has to date covered all his funeral-related expenses including paying the South African morgue that is keeping his remains, as they did when he was alive in relation to his medical treatment.

More importantly, the Kaunda case never resolved the question of who, between the family of the deceased and the state, holds the ultimate say on the funeral of a late former president. The genesis of the Kaunda case was the decision by the Lungu administration to bury former president Kaunda at a government site in Lusaka against his wishes, left to his family, that he be buried next to his late wife at their family farm when he dies. In response to this decision, the Kaunda family filed an urgent application in the High Court seeking leave to commence judicial review against the State over the specified decision.

The family correctly argued that every decision that the State makes must be governed by law, and that since there is no law that obliges the government to bury the remains of a former president at any designated site, the decision must be declared null and void for want of authority. They also asked the court to order the State to release the remains of Kaunda so that he could be buried in accordance with his wishes. The Kaunda family further requested the court to suspend the government’s decision to bury him until after hearing the arguments from both sides in the main matter. Unfortunately, the High Court judge who was allocated the case sat on the urgent application until after the burial took place on 7 July.

Following the burial, the judge ruled that that he was not persuaded that the family had a good case and thus refused to grant them permission to commence judicial review against the State, who did not even bother to appear before him. Although the judge gave the family leave to appeal against his decision, the family chose not to, as doing so would have been an academic exercise since the action they sought to prevent – the burial of Kaunda in a place that disregarded his wishes – had already taken place.

Since the courts never examined the merits of the decision that the government had taken, this outcome meant that there was no judgment in the Kaunda case that could serve as a precedent. All that the Kaunda family did was simply asking for permission to review the decision of the government so that the issue of who has ultimate responsibility over the body and funeral of a former president could be ventilated upon in court. A judicial review of the government’s decision would have resulted in it either being set aside or upheld. So, there is no case law on the point.

There is also currently no written law that empowers the government to conduct the funeral of a former president. This explains why the Attorney General, even in court, has not cited any statute which gives the government the authority over a former president’s body and funeral. What presently exists in Zambia is customary law, which is recognised by the country’s Constitution. Article 7 of the constitution of Zambia defines the “Laws of Zambia” to include the Constitution itself; laws enacted by Parliament; statutory instruments; Zambian customary law which is consistent with the Constitution; and the laws and statutes which apply or extend to Zambia as prescribed. This means that in the absence of a statute that empowers the state to conduct the funeral of a former president, the death and funeral of a former president is subject to customary law. Under customary law, the body of the deceased belongs to the family, and it is the family that has the ultimate responsibility to decide what to with it including where to bury.

Altogether, this shows that the government has no compelling interest in the protracted but undignified row over Lungu’s burial. Outside spiritual warfare and serving the ego of Hichilema, the only other possible reason behind the government’s interest is to reduce the political costs of burying Lungu in exile. If the former president is interred in South Africa, the issue of Lungu’s burial location is likely to feature prominently in the political campaigns ahead of the election in August. Hichilema’s rivals could promise voters that they would exhume Lungu’s remains and bring them to Zambia for reburial if the person who made it impossible for the former president to be buried at home was voted out.

By initiating the court action, Hichilema is probably hoping that he could undermine the effectiveness of such political messages by claiming that he tried all that he could do to bring Lungu’s remains to Zambia and was only prevented by the South African courts. If the court action succeeds, Hichilema, whose administration violated Lungu’s right to travel abroad for medical treatment and the logical outcome is what has happened (death), can try to cleanse himself by showing care for him in death that he did not show when Lungu was alive. This might explain why Zambia’s Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha recently stated that the government intends to bury Lungu before the election. Kabesha, who had earlier said the government is prepared to bury the former president without the involvement of his family, dd not explain the relationship between the August polls and the burial.

To what extent is the government’s pursuit of Lungu’s family on corruption allegations legally justified, politically motivated, or both?

In my view, the overriding motivation is political in part because many of the cases against Lungu’s family members started after the former president, who had retired from active politics following his 2021 electoral defeat, made a political comeback in October 2023 and effectively announced his plans to challenge Hichilema in the 2026 election. If Lungu’s family has any wealth, that wealth could not have been acquired independent of Lungu when he served as Zambia’s president. It therefore follows that if the pursuit of the family on corruption allegations was motivated by legal considerations only, the first target of prosecution should have been the former president himself whom many Zambians believe ran a corrupt regime. Yet the government refused to investigate Lungu for possible corruption, even after he challenged them as early as December 2021 to arrest him if Hichilema and his friends in government believed or had any evidence that he had stolen anything.

In some of the active cases involving the former First Lady Esther Lungu and the children, the accused have testified that the things for which they have been arrested were given to them by Lungu when he was president. So, if the primary motivation of the Hichilema administration was to recover what may have been stolen from Zambians under his predecessor’s rule, the first order of business should have been to institute investigations against Lungu and pave the way for the lifting of his immunity from prosecution so that he could have stood trial for alleged corruption. Whether the government was going to marshal the required two-thirds majority needed to lift his immunity from prosecution was secondary: what was primarily needed was for the government to do its part first: conduct thorough investigations and, if evidence of his corruption was found, take a motion to parliament and ask MPs to lift his immunity.

In other words, if the government found any evidence that Lungu’s family was wealthier beyond its means, then the family’s wealth should have been used as evidence of the extent of Lungu’s possible corruption, especially since they have confirmed that they got the money from him. Even in the active cases, Lungu, whose conditions of service as president were gazetted by law, should have been asked to testify so that he could explain where and how he got the money he dished out to his family. However, in one case, the State rebuffed moves to summon him so that he could testify in the matter involving an accused family member who had said they received whatever was contested by the government from him. Why did the State object to this move?

The abbreviated context I have provided above suggests that the primary motivation behind some of the corruption cases that the State brought against Lungu’s family members was to lure or force the former president back into retirement from politics by going after his wife and children. Before Lungu died, the highly regarded British periodical Africa Confidential reported that the government had sent different emissaries to Lungu with the same message: ‘we are prepared to drop the corruption charges against your family members if you retire from politics for good’. To state all this is not to assert with certainty that the Lungu family is innocent. It is to demonstrate that the pursuit of Lungu’s family on corruption allegations is partly politically motivated.

There is ample evidence that Hichilema has been using corruption as a political card to deal with his political opponents. This explains why the corruption of current senior government officials has gone unpunished. For reasons that I have previously explained in detail elsewhere, Hichilema’s anti-corruption fight is a sham. If the president was serious, he would have paved the way for Lungu’s investigation and possible arrest for corruption long before the former president died. He did not.

In fact, at the onset of his presidency, Hichilema assured Lungu that he had nothing to worry insofar as prosecution is concerned. This assurance was, from all points of view, most unacceptable. If Lungu had committed any criminal offense, it was not for Hichilema to give him a pass since the offenses were committed against the Zambian people, not Hichilema. In other words, if Lungu stole, he did not steal Hichilema’s money; he stole from Zambians and those are the ones who should have decided his fate through the institutions they have set up to deal with corruption including the courts