Sishuwa’s Poisoned Pen, From Professor to Prophet of Doom

*Sishuwa’s Poisoned Pen, From Professor to Prophet of Doom*

*By Magret Mwanza*

There comes a time when the pursuit of political relevance turns into intellectual recklessness. That time, for Dr. Sishuwa Sishuwa, has unfortunately arrived. His latest piece, _“The Occult, the President, and the Body,”_ published in The Mast on 27th June 2025, is not only a descent into superstition and baseless conjecture, but a grotesque abuse of academic authority.

It exposes not the government, but Sishuwa himself as a man consumed by an unrelenting hatred for President Hakainde Hichilema, now willing to flirt with the absurd in a desperate bid to demonize a man he cannot defeat through facts.

Dr. Sishuwa has long positioned himself as an independent public intellectual. But independence must never be mistaken for indifference to truth or intoxication with bitterness. What he offers in this article is not analysis, but a dangerous cocktail of conspiracy theory, pseudo-sociology, and personal resentment.

To suggest, repeatedly and shamelessly that President Hichilema seeks access to the late President Lungu’s body for “occult purposes” is both defamatory and intellectually bankrupt. It is an assault on reason and decency. Zambia is a constitutional democracy, not a Nollywood script, and our people deserve discourse rooted in evidence and not folklore wrapped in a scholar’s gown.

Let us be unequivocal, President Hichilema is an ordained elder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. His life, both public and private, has consistently reflected the core Christian values of integrity, restraint, and respect for human dignity. *The SDA doctrine does not and has never entertained superstition, witchcraft, or occultism. It is rooted in the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and the coming of Christ not in ancestral rituals or the manipulation of dead bodies.*

It is therefore beyond offensive for a man of Sishuwa’s academic stature to lend credibility to unsubstantiated fears rooted in rumour, and worse still, to frame those hallucinations as analytical insight. His role, if he still wishes to wear the title of scholar, is to educate and clarify, not to fan flames of ignorance and cultural paranoia.

What is even more disturbing is the timing and context of his attack. Zambia lost a former Head of State. In times of national grief, unity should be the order of the day not morbid speculations designed to undermine the sitting President and ferment public suspicion.

The government, through the Attorney General, approached the courts of South Africa to prevent a secretive burial of a man who regardless of political differences served as the sixth President of the Republic of Zambia. That decision was rooted in three things, the need for national closure, constitutional responsibility, and historical precedent. That is what responsible governance looks like.

Instead of engaging with these legal and political realities, Sishuwa spirals into accusations that border on libel. His suggestion that President Hichilema’s refusal to pledge staying away from the funeral is evidence of a desire to collect body parts for rituals is as ridiculous as it is dangerous.

One wonders what Sishuwa would have said if HH had opted to ignore the funeral altogether, likely, that he was being petty and disrespectful.

This obsessive hatred of President Hichilema has reached levels that border on derangement. No president in the history of Zambia has been subjected to this degree of sustained malice dressed in academic robes. But what Sishuwa forgets is this. in his zeal to demonize HH, he is slowly turning himself into a parody of the very objectivity he once championed.

What is clear from Sishuwa’s article is that it has less to do with Edgar Lungu’s death and everything to do with his own political frustrations. The tragic irony is that while he accuses the state of politicizing a burial, it is he who has politicized it the most, transforming it into a platform for spiritual smear, mythological warfare, and political blackmail.

President Hichilema is not perfect. No leader is. But to accuse him of pursuing access to a corpse for occult protection is an unforgivable insult, not just to him, but to the intelligence of the Zambian people. Our democracy must be defended by truth, not drowned in the murky waters of superstition.

To Dr. Sishuwa, I offer one final thought, hatred disguised as analysis is still hatred. And if your objective is to destabilize Zambia through such vile insinuations, you will ultimately fail, not because of government resistance, but because truth and decency will always prevail over darkness and deceit.

Let the courts decide on the legality of the State’s actions, not urban legends. And let Zambians remember that no one who believes in Christ and walks in the light of truth as President Hichilema does or can be found trafficking in the shadows of the occult.