The occult, the president, and the body: Understanding Zambia’s legal action against the Lungu family

By Sishuwa Sishuwa

On 24 June 2025, hours before late former president Edgar Lungu was set to be buried in South Africa the following day, 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 three considerations: 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. It is my opinion that Kabesha’s arguments are without merit and that the real reasons behind his court action, whose trial shall run until August 2025, lie elsewhere.

Why the Attorney General’s stated reasons are unconvincing
Let us closely examine the three reasons advanced by Zambia’s Attorney General. The first argument is that Lungu should be buried in Zambia because he deserves a state funeral to be attended by foreign dignitaries. This reason is not supported by law. In Zambia, the law that governs the benefits of former presidents is the Benefits of Former Presidents Act as amended by the Benefits of Former Presidents (Amendment) Act Number 21 of October 1998. It states that “a former President shall, upon ceasing to hold office, be entitled to:

(a) a tax-free monthly pension at the rate of eighty per cent of the incumbent president’s emoluments;

(b) the benefits set out in Schedule of this Act; all of which shall be a charge on the general revenues of the Republic.”

The benefits appearing in the stated Schedule are:

In addition to these outlined benefits, the Act states in section 4 (a) that “there shall be:

(a) assigned to a former President, within a period of not more than two years from the date of ceasing to hold office, a furnished executive house built or bought in Zambia by the State at a place of the former President’s choice;

(b) provided to a former President immediately upon ceasing to hold office housing accommodation as the government considers fit before the house referred to in paragraph (a) is assigned to the former President; and

(c) provided by the State to a former President within a period of not more than six months from the date of ceasing to hold office, three drivers, three motor vehicles with free maintenance and entitlement to fuel to the extent determined by the Cabinet.”

The Act also provides for the circumstances when these benefits are not payable to a former President. Section 5 (1) states that

“The pension and other benefits conferred by this Act shall not be paid, assigned or provided to a former President who is —

(a) in receipt of a salary from the Government; or

(b) engaged in active politics.”

The Act, in section 2, defines “active politics” to mean —

“(a) the doing of any act indicating a person’s intention to hold elective or appointive office;

or

(b) the holding of elective or appointive office in a political party or in an organization whose main aim is the furtherance of political objectives”.

Following his defeat in Zambia’s 2021 election, Lungu retired from active politics in August that year and the State accorded him the benefits stipulated in the Act above. Two years later, in October 2023, the former president made a political comeback, and this prompted the State to withdraw his benefits. Government spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa explained that the decision to withdraw Lungu’s benefits emanated from “the fact that he has publicly told the nation that he has returned to active politics”. To avoid misrepresenting Mweetwa, it is worth quoting what he said at length:

“Section five of the Benefits of Former Presidents Act cap 15 of the laws of Zambia provides circumstances under which benefits of a former president can be withdrawn. One of them is where a former president is in active politics. So the nation is accordingly informed that the benefits that were accruing to former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu have henceforth been withdrawn in accordance with the law as by law established. This law has always been in place, so this trigger by Secretary to Cabinet is simply out of operation of the law’’.

This decision by the Zambian authorities meant that at the time of his death, Lungu, whose legal challenge against the move remains before the courts, had been stripped of all his benefits, including a state funeral – item number 12 in the cited Schedule to the Benefits of Former Presidents Act. Kabesha’s argument that Lungu’s remains should be repatriated to Zambia because the former president deserved a state funeral is therefore unsound because at the time of his death, Lungu was not entitled to one. There is no law that allows the State to reinstate rights or benefits on a deceased former president that were not accorded to him or her by law when he or she was alive.

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 Kenneth Kaunda against the State. This reason is equally defective for two reasons. One is that at the time he died, Kaunda was still enjoying the benefits accorded to former presidents by law, including funeral expenses. This was not the case for Lungu, as shown above. More importantly, the decision in the matter involving the family of Kaunda against the State does not serve as a precedent because it was merely a refusal by the High Court to grant leave to commence judicial review of the government’s decision to inter Kaunda at Embassy Park against his wishes, as stated below.

To recap: Prior to his death, Zambia’s founding President Kenneth Kaunda had told his family that it was his wish to be buried at his property in State Lodge area of Lusaka next to his late wife, Betty Kaunda. After he died in June 2021, the family stated that they would respect or honour his wishes. The Zambian State, represented by the Secretary to Cabinet, decided in early July that Kaunda would be buried at Embassy Park in the heart of Lusaka on 7 July 2021 and thereafter be exhumed and reburied in accordance with his wishes.

In response to this decision, the Kaunda family, represented by his son Kaweche Kaunda, filed an urgent application in the High Court on 6 July 2021, seeking leave to commence judicial review against the State over the specified decision. The family 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 Embassy Park, 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 requested the court to stay the decision to bury him until after hearing the arguments from both sides in the main matter.

High Court judge Wilfred Muma sat on the urgent application until after the burial took place on 7 July. Following the burial, Muma 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 Muma 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 government’s decision was never reviewed by the court for the reasons stated above, this outcome meant that there was no judgment in the Kaunda case that could serve as a precedent. A judicial review of the government’s decision would have resulted in it either being set aside or upheld. In the current case involving late former president Lungu, it was precisely because the State was aware that the decision in the Kaunda case was not a legal precedent that it resorted to negotiating with Lungu’s family to secure a political settlement. This action constituted an acknowledgement that in the absence of written law or precedent that it could rely on to enforce its wishes, the State does not have the power to dictate where a former president shall be buried. Kabesha knows all this but decided to file the case anyway for possible reasons that I discuss below.

The final argument that Lungu should be buried in Zambia because of custom-driven “public interest” – an elusive term whose meaning is not defined in any Zambian statute – is somewhat persuasive only if someone overlooks the prime reason behind the family’s decision to bury him outside the country: President Hichilema’s refusal to stay away from his predecessor’s funeral, as per the wishes of the deceased. It is true that there is a significant section of Zambians who may wish to pay their last respects to the former president. In Zambia, people like to see a dead leader to give them their last respects. Burying Lungu in South Africa would deny them the opportunity to do so.

However, in the absence of legislation that provides for burial rites of former presidents, these customs and practices must be weighed against individual rights and the rights of the family to bear autonomy to the deceased. According to his family, Lungu made it clear that he did not want his successor to be anywhere near his body and funeral if he died: “Former president Lungu’s settled wishes were that in the event of his death, those who never showed any interest in his welfare while he was alive should not be allowed to pretend to be interested in his welfare in death. He specifically directed the family to ensure that the current President of Zambia should be nowhere near his body or funeral”, revealed family spokesperson Makebi Zulu at a press conference earlier this month.

Examples abound about how Lungu was badly treated by the Hichilema administration when he was alive. For instance, in September 2023, the State prevented Lungu from leaving the country to seek medical treatment in clear violation of the law since this action happened before he returned to active politics. In the same month, the State also blocked him from traveling to South Korea on a self-funded trip to a conference on peace after forcibly removing him and his luggage from the airplane he had earlier boarded.

Lungu was to suffer more acts of abuse and injustice at the hands of the administration in subsequent years, so his decision to bar his successor from his funeral is understandable. In enforcing his wishes and deciding to bury him in South Africa, the interests of the family, who includes several of Lungu’s relatives whom the government has dragged to court on assorted charges, are thus based on previous ill-treatment of the deceased by the State and the President’s refusal to stay away from the body and funeral, if held in Zambia. Should the family’s interests be overridden by the public interest? Well, the courts will decide.

The real reasons behind Zambia’s court action in Pretoria
In my view, the decision by Kabesha to sue the Lungu family in South Africa over his remains have little to do with any of the official reasons provided. The legal action has much to do with three possible motivations that are entirely political.

The first appears to be superstition. To state this reason is not to express the author’s belief in the occult or to assert with confidence that Hichilema practices occultism; it is to acknowledge a sticky point that is at the heart of the standoff between the family and Hichilema when it comes to the funeral of the late former president. The family 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 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 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 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 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 it 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. 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 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. In protest at the family’s decision, Hichilema cancelled the period of national mourning three days before it was due to end.

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, the author does 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 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.

The second possible reason behind the government’s court action in South Africa is to force the Lungu family back to mediation that would result in the repatriation of Lungu’s remains to Zambia. On 25 July, the Pretoria High Court issued directives to both parties, stating that trial in the case would span a period of over a month. Here, the government may be hoping that instead of engaging in a costly and protracted legal battle in a foreign country, a battle that would keep their loved one in a refrigerator for months, Lungu’s family would be worn out by the lengthy court process and more open to a negotiated settlement. After all, there is no guarantee that the former president would be buried in August when the Pretoria High Court is likely to pass judgment since whoever loses the case has recourse to appeal to superior courts.

Since the filing of the court action, Kabesha, Mweetwa, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mulambo Haimbe, have all publicly called on the Lungus to embrace mediation “so that the former president can be given a dignified burial back home.” By exerting pressure on the Lungus this way, the government might be thinking that the legal action would easily persuade them to agree to the repatriation of Lungu’s remains to Lusaka where Hichilema can more easily have access to them for reasons stated in the first point. Using this strategy, it is even possible for Hichilema, who has shown that he can hardly be trusted, to promise that he would stay away from Lungu’s funeral and U-turn once the body is in Zambia.

The third possible reason behind the government’s court action in South Africa 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 country’s general election next year. 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.

It emerges from the above analysis that Zambia’s legal effort to compel the return of the former president’s remains from South Africa lacks a credible legal basis and appears to be primarily driven by political and occult-related motives. The official reasons – his entitlement to a state funeral, a precedent from the Kaunda case, and public interest – do not withstand scrutiny. Lungu forfeited his presidential benefits by re-entering active politics, and the Kaunda case produced no binding legal precedent. Beneath these claims lies a deeper unease: the belief within Lungu’s family that the State, or agents within it, may seek access to his body for occult purposes.

While such fears may seem extreme, they are deeply rooted in Zambia’s political imagination and have shaped the family’s refusal to hand over the remains. This resistance is further fuelled by the Hichilema administration’s prior mistreatment of Lungu during his life. The case reveals a troubling paradox: a government that denied Lungu dignity in life now insists on overseeing his burial. The Pretoria High Court must now determine whether legal coercion, framed as public interest, should override the rights of the deceased and his family. The answer must be no. Dignity in death, like dignity in life, must not be subjected to political exploitation or occult anxiety disguised as national concern.

It is worth noting that since his election in 2021, Hichilema has conducted himself in several ways that have fed public perception that he believes in the supernatural. For instance, the President has refused to live in State House, the official residence of all his predecessors and even colonial heads of governments since 1924. As a result, he commutes from his home to State House every day at a huge public cost in what is arguably a form of abuse of office. He also infamously refused to directly receive the instruments of power from President Lungu during his inauguration ceremony in 2021, allowing his bodyguard to receive them on his behalf instead. More recently, in December 2024, two individuals, Jasten Mabulesse Candunde and Leonard Phiri, were arrested and prosecuted on a charge of attempting to assassinate the President of Zambia through supernatural means. In a press statement, police said that the duo was hired by Hichilema’s political opponents, found with “assorted charms” including a live chameleon, and formally indicted under a 1914 colonial-era law, the Witchcraft Act.

Generally, Zambians have come to believe that the cited and several other examples provide an entry point for understanding the mind of Hichilema. His insistence that he would preside over Lungu’s funeral, even when the deceased’s family have made it clear that his participation is entirely unwelcome, is as incriminating as it is bizarre and against African culture. Such conduct will only lend credence to general perceptions that Hichilema believes in superstition, has a personal interest in the funeral, and probably considers any failure to access the corpse of his predecessor as an existential threat to his own life.