WHERE I hail from, when a person dies in the circumstances that President Edgar Chagwa Lungu died, we don’t mourn with tears, we mourn in silence; silence that holds tears, anger, sorrow and bitterness. In this state, tears flow into the heart, into the veins and arteries; only the earth detects and feels the pressure that builds up in the body. Mourning in this fashion is meant to deny the people responsible for such a cruel death space for them to rejoice; to rejoice over a death which should have been avoided at all cost. President Lungu is a state property not because of a state funeral, a horde of armed police officers guarding him, a military send off with a 21-gun salute, where he would be buried or indeed living in a house with a high fence fitted with security gadgets, no; some ordinary Zambians can afford or accorded these. President Lungu is a state property because of the honour conferred on him not by the UPND government or President Hakainde Hichilema but by the people of Zambia who elected him as President, the highest office in the land. No ink, hatred, abuse, jealousy, insults, mistreatments will erase that. President Lungu’s first two attempts at the Presidency ended into victory. President Hichilema made five attempts at the Presidency and lost; he won on the sixth attempt and now wants to rule for ever by whatever means possible. On January 31, 1980, the grieving nation bade farewell to one of her foremost freedom fighters, Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe, a firebrand with a reputation of not being afraid to speak his mind. While attending the London Commonwealth Conference in 1966, Kapwepwe made headlines in the world press accusing the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson of racism in his handling of the Rhodesian independence issue. Despite the remark having angered Wilson, Kapwepwe repeated the remark at four different press conferences before he flew home. Here at home, while debating on the floor of the house, he told the National Assembly that if there were nationalists in Zambia, then they should take off their luxury suits, roll up their sleeves and do something for their people. Kapwepwe was himself a nationalist to the core, it is him who coined the name Zambia from the Zambezi River; Zambezi is now being used as a tribal tool to divide Zambia into two halves. Kapwepwe was President Kenneth Kaunda’s childhood friend and king maker. Without Kapwepwe on his side, there isn’t much that Kaunda would have accomplished. Kapwepwe served as minister of African Agriculture, minister of Home Affairs, minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice President in the UNIP government. When Kaunda’s authoritarian tendencies started emerging, Kapwepwe parted company with him and formed the United Progressive Party (UPP). This nascent party won a by-election in Mufulira and sent panic waves in UNIP which poured resources of all sorts into the campaigns to ensure it won the seat, but Kapwepwe, with meagre resources stood on his party’s ticket and won convincingly. It was one of the reasons that hastened the introduction of one-party dictatorship by Kaunda. UPP and other opposition political parties were all banned. Kapwepwe remained unshaken in his pursuit to return the country back to pluralism, for this, he suffered physical and verbal abuse at the hands of the UNIP government and thugs/ cadres. At one point, he was severely beaten by UNIP thugs at Luburma now Kamwala market in Lusaka. Kapwepwe’s last attempt to challenge Kaunda at the 1978 party conference was thwarted at the eleventh hour when the UNIP constitution was changed to allow only those who had been party members for a continuous period of five years qualify to stand as a party president. Kapwepwe, after being brutalised by the UNIP government/thugs and this last embarrassment left UNIP for good and settled in his home village in Chinsali. In January 1980, Kapwepwe, en-route to Kalulushi to visit his medical doctor son, passed through State House to plead with Kaunda for the country to return to plural politics and ease the economic hardships that Zambians were going through; thereafter proceeded to Kalulushi. Whilst in Kalulushi, Kapwepwe fell seriously sick, was hospitalised and he asked for then Chairman -General of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) the de-facto opposition political party Frederick Chiluba and gave him his walking stick. Chiluba was to become the first President of Zambia after the return to plural politics. At age 57, Kapwepwe died and like Lungu, his wish was to be given a private funeral and burial. This wish was respected by the Kaunda administration and Kapwepwe was given a tribal burial. There was no state funeral, no coffin or casket from the state, Kapwepwe chose to be buried in a reed mat wrapped in a cow skin. This is how members of the Bemba Royal family are buried. In his death, Kapwepwe, like Lungu spoke loud and clear, he didn’t want those who abused him, who mistreated him to launder their guilty, their lack of compassion and magnanimity by granting him a state funeral and spend lavishly taxpayers’ money, he refused that. Both Kapwepwe and Lungu have demonstrated that public service and resources are meant to uplift the welfare of the citizens and not to be used as a reward or punishment to praise singers or those with dissenting views respectively. Kapwepwe chose to be buried as a member of the royal family because he was born as such; No one is born a President, minister, judge or any government official. When we are mourning, we mourn the loss of the loved one, of what loss is President Lungu to the UPND government? What is it that the UPND government loved about President Lungu? So far, the only words of wisdom we have heard from a government or UPND official are those attributed to Mulambo Haimbe, the minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation that the country should focus on mourning the late President and not recalling what happened to him when he was alive. This is better than those denying the persecution and maltreatment that Lungu suffered at the hands of the state. Those denying this truth, hiding in plain sight are annoying millions of mourners and courting trouble. Mulambo is mourning with the rest of the country, his message is the one that has the healing effect and has the power to comfort the Lungu family, the PF, the Tonse Alliance and millions of other mourners. In this difficult and trying moment, we urge the government and UPND leaders to ensure that as much as possible, the issuance of statements on anything to do with the death, funeral and burial of President Lungu is restricted to the authority of the Lungu family, the PF/Tonse Alliance and Cabinet Office. We can’t let every Jim and Jack have the luxury of issuing statements that have the potential of inflaming emotions of the millions that are mourning. Silence doesn’t mean surrender. If the UPND government loved Lungu, knew the following and influence that he had and had an idea on how to use soft power, they should have appointed him as Ambassador-at-large immediately after he announced his retirement from active politics. In this position, Lungu would have helped negotiate for a debt relief especially with China, after all the bulk of the debt was contracted with China when President Lungu was head of State. He should have helped the government resolve conflicts in Congo DR, Sudan, Central African Republic and Somalia but it was not to be. The maltreatment his family, himself and his party suffered was too much and at the expense of losing what was due to him, he returned to active politics and met his death as a refugee. As we are mourning, Lungu, three of his MPs, Nickson Chilangwa, Ronald Chitotela and Maureen Mabonge are political prisoners. By alienating itself from Lungu, the UPND government has unwittingly poured millions of sympathy votes into PF/Tonse Alliance ballot boxes. The state funeral that the state is clamouring for is an opportunity to exorcise the guilty, lack of compassion, magnanimity, legitimising renegade Robert Chabinga’s PF presidency and for government officials to show off their newly acquired black suits. The death of President Lungu has however robbed the UPND and its government a scapegoat for their failures in next year’s campaigns. One of the attributes of a good leader is to ensure that no one suffers the ordeals that they-went through. We saw this in Nelson Mandela, upon his release from a 27-year imprisonment, he visited the Judge that sentenced him and was instrumental in laying a strong foundation for the black South Africans not to revenge their sufferings on the minority Whites hence the healing that is taking place in South Africa. This is what President Hichilema has lamentably failed to do; instead, he has used med-fare and law-fare to send FDD president Edith Nawakwi and President Lungu to their early graves. Both were denied medical attention and were victims of the law. According to SABC News, President Lungu’s medical care was supplemented by personal resources of President Cyril Ramaphosa and Jacob Zuma who saw a brother in Lungu while our High Commission in Pretoria and President Hichilema did not even know where he was staying or the hospital he was going to. When SABC was breaking news on Lungu’s death, our own ZNBC was running regular programming. Over 12 hours after President Lungu’s death, that is when President Hichilema issued a statement that, “…government had been formally informed of Mr. Lungu’s death by his family.” This brief statement says it all; the disconnection between Lungu and President Hichilema/ government. If indeed Lungu was a state property to the Hichilema administration, the government should have been the one to formally inform the nation of President Lungu’s death. President Lungu will forever be remembered for the unprecedented infrastructure development in the country and having facilitated the enactment of the first and only nonpartisan Constitution which is now under threat of being mutilated by President Hichilema. We implore those who will hold the office of President when President Hichilema is defeated next year not to ever let another former President, Hichilema included, to undergo what ECL suffered. Let only Hichilema be the one with this dark dented record. We pray to almighty God to grant President Hichilema a long life as former head of State and for the repose of the soul of the late President. Ends. Mukwita on Point June 11, 2025 The last dance of ECL – A race well run ON June 5, 2025, a dark pall descended upon Zambia. Word filtered through from Pretoria that Edgar Chagwa Lungu – our sixth Republican President – had breathed his last. By his bedside was his devoted wife and lifelong friend, Madam Esther Nyawa Lungu, who had only just marked her birthday three days earlier. It was a moment of profound sorrow. At 68, President Lungu was more than a politician – he was a husband, a father, a friend to many, and a quiet unifier of a divided land. Like millions of Zambians, I mourn. But I also carry the heavy privilege of mourning a man I knew personally for over two decades. From my early days as a young journalist, through to my time as a diplomat appointed by his hand to represent the nation in Stockholm, Sweden and Berlin, Germany I bore witness to his warmth, his humour, and his deeply empathetic heart. I often wonder what he saw in me – why he took me under his wing like a broken bird and never let go. But I thank God he did. In our many long, candid conversations – some at odd hours – I encountered not just a President, but a priestly soul, always willing to listen, forgive, guide, and pray with you. President Lungu was a man of deep compassion, perhaps shaped by his own humble beginnings as the son of Ranger Padule Saili Lungu and Madam Tasila, born in Ndola Central Hospital. When a Catholic priest died in Austria and needed help returning home, I placed a call to the President. Within hours, the support was in place – quietly, swiftly, without fanfare. He had a heart that hurt when others hurt. That spirit birthed Against All Odds, the first and only official biography of President Lungu, which I was honoured to write. He told me simply, “Yes ba Tony – write. We need to challenge you guys to start writing.” Through that book, his desire to be remembered as “an ordinary man who became President” came alive – a man who demystified leadership and inspired possibility. I remember once, while driving from Prague to Berlin, my son Lubinda answered a call on my behalf. “Sorry, dad is driving, sir, please call back later,” he said. When I asked who it was, he replied, “Just the President.” Later, ECL laughed it off: “Your son was right – you can’t drive and talk.” That was him – always humane, always grounding the mighty in the everyday. Lunch with him felt less like a state duty and more like catching up with a favourite uncle. He had flaws like any man, but his empathy and humility overwhelmed them. Even in political turbulence after his presidency, what endured in him was kindness – not bitterness. As you read this, we stand on the eve of laying him to eternal rest. The man who built roads, airports, and unity – now makes his final journey. Zambia mourns a father; heaven gains a gentle soul. Lessons from the exit of ECL On June 10, I read with interest that President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa – where President Lungu passed – was calling for a National Dialogue to reconcile a divided nation. “Poverty, unemployment and inequality are deep wounds,” Ramaphosa said. I couldn’t help but think: is this not also the Zambia we now face? In our own hour of grief and division, could we not borrow a page from South Africa? Is it not time to consider a “Zambia National Dialogu” – one that brings together all stripes of our nation to heal, reconcile and chart a new path? I have long advocated for dialogue, whether in Palestine-Israel, Ukraine-Russia, or right here at home. Not because it is easy or popular – but because peace is always the harder, nobler choice. Conflict is a zero-sum game; nobody truly wins. As we mourn ECL, we must also ask: how do we honour him? Not just with flags and funerals, but with a commitment to unity. That’s why I believe, like my big brother KBF that now is the time for the Church to take the lead – impartially, prayerfully – and bring together all parties. The state must sit down with Madam Esther Lungu, a woman beloved by millions. Her grief deserves our respect. There is room, in this fragile moment, for sincere apologies, reconciliatory gestures and the beginning of something redemptive. We are not too proud to learn from South Africa. President Hichilema – the Don H – has the power and moral authority to lead this effort. A national roundtable is not weakness. It is wisdom. President Lungu was a man of peace. Let us bury him in peace. And in doing so, may we resurrect the spirit of national unity he tried so hard to uphold. Long live the memory of Edgar Chagwa Lungu. May his last dance inspire our first steps toward healing. Anthony Mukwita is a published author, international relations analyst, and author of Against All Odds: President Edgar Lungu’s rough journey to State House
RESPECT ECL’S WISH
