What is it with Zambians and their former leaders? Every few years we have the spectacle of an incumbent treating his predecessor with disdain, or like a criminal.
When the founding father of Zambia, the late Kenneth Kaunda, left office after losing elections in 1991, he was harassed and arrested and declared an alien by his successor, Frederick Chiluba.
He was accused of plotting a coup and told he would be stripped of his citizenship because his father had come from Malawi. Chiluba moved a constitutional amendment that the parents of a presidential candidate had to both be born Zambians. That meant Kaunda could not re-enter politics. How do you declare Kaunda, who ruled Zambia for more than 20 years, not Zambian?
Chiluba, who led the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), got a taste of his own medicine when the law he piloted against Kaunda was used against him too.
Rupiah Banda, who was president from 2008 to 2011, had his citizenship questioned by the Patriotic Front of Edgar Lungu just before the 2011 elections. It was alleged his father had been born in Malawi and he would therefore not be eligible to stand. Banda was outgoing president at the time.
Now we are treated to the drama of the Zambian government trying to force Lungu's family to hand over his body after he died in South Africa, where he was being treated for cancer.
There is no love lost between Lungu and his successor, Hakainde Hichilema. The two fought bitter campaigns in 2016 and 2021, with Lungu winning the former and Hichilema the latter.
When Lungu won in 2016, Hichilema refused to accept the results and did everything in his power to show disdain to Lungu as president. He even refused to yield for the presidential motorcade on the road and was arrested and maltreated in jail.
When they campaigned in 2021, Lungu used incumbency to harass and intimidate Hichilema, with permits refused for campaign meetings. When Hichilema came into office in 2021, he removed all benefits associated with a former head of state — such as travel, medical aid and pension, and arrested Lungu’s wife.
As a result, Lungu, sick and dying, flew himself to South Africa after being told there was no money from the state for his travel. He survived for four months. Now that he has died, the man who refused to assist him in life, whose government did not have money for a flight from Lusaka to Joburg, wants to charter a plane to carry the body home so he can lord it over his burial. He wants to restore to Lungu the benefits of a former head of state that he denied him in life.
Why is Hichilema so desperate to stand over Lungu's body? Why cant he accept that the family, as the final custodians of Lungu’s remains, don’t want him there?
The family is saying no. And I think they are right. You cannot treat someone so disrespectfully in life and then rock up at his funeral with flowers, a speech and crocodile tears. That Hichilema has gone to the South African courts to try to get Lungu’s body shows how much he feels he needs to humiliate him, even in death.
Lungu apparently left instructions that this should not happen. This was reportedly made clear to Hichilema’s proxies when the negotiations for Lungu’s repatriation were held and, according to the family, the proxies agreed. However, a programme produced by the government in Lusaka showed that Hichilema would receive the body and conduct the funeral.
It was this that led to the embarrassment at Lanseria, where the SANDF guard of honour was ready to see the body off, but there was no body to repatriate. The family had stopped the process. When they decided they would bury him here, the desperate Hichilema went to court.
Now Lungu must wait until at least early August to enter mother Africa and rest — that is if whatever decision the court makes is not appealed.
It is nonsensical, childish and revolting that there should be a scrum between Lungu’s family and the Zambian government over a body. Why is Hichilema so desperate to stand over Lungu's body? Why cant he accept that the family, as the final custodians of Lungu’s remains, don’t want him there?
The South African protocol on former presidents, including apartheid leaders, is that they should be given state funerals. When PW Botha died, he left instructions that the state should not be involved. His wish was respected. Why cant the Zambian government do the same and take a step back?
Are there no leaders of substance on this continent any more, who can sit Hichilema down and tell him to cool it?
• Tsedu is a former editor of Sunday Times and a former chair of Sanef
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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