By Brian Matambo | 25 April, 2025

International relations expert and Pan-African commentator Dr David Matsanga has strongly condemned the Zambian government’s handling of the remains of former Republican President Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, describing the unfolding dispute as “a very sad moment for Africa” and an embarrassment to African values, customs and leadership.

Speaking during an interview hosted by Olamide Adeyemi on World Now, Dr Matsanga said the battle over President Lungu’s body had gone beyond law and protocol, and had now exposed what he called a painful failure of African reconciliation, dignity and respect for the family of the deceased.

“This is a very sad moment for Africa,” Dr Matsanga said. “It is unAfrican for us to have this as a headline when somebody has died in Africa. We do not go to this level. We have exposed our ignorance of African values and African customs.”

The interview followed reports that the Zambian government had taken custody of President Lungu’s remains from a funeral home in Pretoria, despite the family maintaining that a separate urgent court order had directed that the body be returned to the facility. The Zambian government has insisted that it is acting in pursuit of a state funeral for the former Head of State, while the Lungu family has maintained that the late President wished to be buried privately and did not want President Hakainde Hichilema near his body or presiding over his funeral.

Dr Matsanga said that, regardless of court battles and state arguments, the wishes of the family and the will of the deceased should carry moral and cultural weight.

“I think the family has a say,” he said. “If the will says he does not want to be buried, whatever way, I have asked President Hichilema to just avoid this. Leave it. Surrender it. Let the burial take place, and that is it.”

In a sharp rebuke of the Zambian government’s posture, Dr Matsanga argued that the insistence on a state funeral was not merely about national protocol but political calculation. He said President Hichilema was attempting to use the body of a man with whom he had a bitter political relationship in order to gain political advantage ahead of elections.

“It is a political calculation,” Dr Matsanga said. “He knows he is going to lose. There is an election coming in a few months in Zambia, and he wants to use the body of the man he hated so much to have political capital.”

He added that the government’s actions were difficult to reconcile with the treatment President Lungu allegedly received after leaving office. According to Dr Matsanga, the same administration that now wants to preside over Lungu’s state funeral had previously stripped him of privileges, vehicles, security and dignity.

“This man had a bad relationship with the late President,” he said. “They had battles. He had removed cars. He had removed security. He told him to return everything that was worth. Then why do you want him when he is dead?”

Dr Matsanga’s strongest point was that the state cannot become “next of kin” simply because the deceased once held public office. He said the family must remain central in decisions concerning burial, dignity and final rites.

“On this one I stand with the family,” he said. “The family has a right to take their person. They are the next of kin. The President is not the next of kin.”

The remarks are likely to resonate deeply among many Zambians who believe that the late President Lungu’s final wishes and family rights have been subordinated to political theatre. For them, the issue is no longer merely about where a former president should be buried. It is about whether the state can override a grieving widow, a grieving family and the expressed wishes of the deceased for the sake of optics.

Dr Matsanga also warned that the dispute had become a humiliating spectacle for the continent. He said Africa was presenting itself before the world as a place where political rivalry does not end even at death.

“What do you think these people, the Western countries, the Europeans, are saying about us?” he asked. “What are they saying now? That we are shallow, fighting over a dead body.”

He said the matter showed a wider crisis in African politics, where leaders fail to reconcile after elections and where opposition and ruling parties treat each other as permanent enemies rather than competitors within one nation.

“It teaches us there is something wrong with our democracy, our politics, our governance,” he said. “Africa needs to go back to the drawing board.”

The dispute has also dragged South Africa into the centre of a sensitive sovereignty and legal question. Since President Lungu died in South Africa, the handling of his body falls under South African jurisdiction. Dr Matsanga said South Africa must take leadership by respecting its own laws, customs and values, and by paying attention to the will of the deceased and the position of the family.

“South Africa must stand up,” he said. “South Africa has values and customs. What does the will of the President say? That is it.”

He further questioned why a state should force the repatriation of a body where the deceased, according to the family, had expressed a contrary wish.

“If a man says, ‘I do not want to be buried back,’ will you force people?” he asked. “Let us take the will of the man and the family.”

For the Lungu family and their supporters, Dr Matsanga’s intervention gives international voice to what they have argued from the beginning: that Edgar Chagwa Lungu was not merely a former Head of State to be claimed by government ceremony, but a husband, father, relative and human being whose final wishes deserve respect.

The political consequences may also be severe. Dr Matsanga warned that if President Hichilema continues to pursue the matter against the wishes of the Lungu family, he could face serious political backlash.

“He is going to have a rough time if he does not bury Mr Lungu back in Zambia,” Dr Matsanga said, before adding that the dispute could cost President Hichilema politically.

What has emerged from the interview is a brutal indictment of the Zambian government’s handling of one of the most sensitive national matters in recent memory. A former president has died. His family is grieving. His final wishes are being asserted. Yet instead of restraint, humility and compassion, the state has chosen confrontation.

In African tradition, death is supposed to silence political swords. It is the hour when enemies lower their voices, families take the front seat, and the nation bows its head. But in the case of President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, even death has not protected him from the politics that pursued him in life.

Dr Matsanga’s message was therefore simple and devastating: leave the family to bury their dead. Respect the will of the departed. Stop turning Edgar Lungu’s body into a political battlefield.

Because a nation that cannot honour the dead with dignity cannot easily convince the living that it respects them.