Africa-Press – Gambia. The spat over late Zambia president Edgar Lungu’s body shows how battles over leaders’ remains often pit families against regimes in Africa.
When a public figure passes, do the wishes of the family come second? In the case of Zambia‘s Edgar Lungu, the Pretoria High Court has had to step in after the 68-year-old former president died of an undisclosed illness in South Africa in June.
Lungu, who had a long-standing feud with current President Hakainde Hichilema, had reportedly told his family that he did not want the head of state at the funeral. The family wanted to bury him in South Africa, away from the sitting president.
While Zambia has tried to repatriate the body for a state funeral, the Lungu family has refused, reportedly stationing a guard at the mortuary in order to prevent his body from returning to Lusaka.
An intervention by a South African court earlier this month ruled his body be returned to Zambia, as Lungu “belongs to the nation”. The family responded in a distressed fashion in court after the decision, quickly indicating that they will lodge an appeal. For now, Lungu’s body remains in South Africa.
The fate of many other emblematic African leaders and their remains have been the subject of controversy, with family plans often derailed by states which want to maintain a hold on their bodies – and legacies.José Edouardo dos Santos
Death: Spain, 2022
After nearly 40 years of iron rule in Angola, José Edouardo dos Santos stepped down in 2017. He eventually died at a clinic in Barcelona, Spain in 2022, but not before his hand-picked successor decided to go after the dos Santos family wealth that courts ruled was taken from the state.
Turmoil within the family created problems for a proper state burial, as some children, including Isobel dos Santos, were charged with corruption and could not travel to Angola without being arrested. After an autopsy in Spain at the request of the family, he was buried in Luanda on what would have been his 80th birthday. Other family members boycotted the funeral in the Angolan capital because they said it took place on that date to hide the most recent ‘fraudulent’ election.
Kenneth Kaunda
Death: Zambia, 2021
Liberation leader and first president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda died in June 2021 but was not interred until the following month, due to the family wishing to respect his last wish to be buried next to his wife, Betty, at his residence. Despite Kaunda’s wishes he was buried at the national memorial site at Embassy Park in Lusaka. The country observed a 21-day period of mourning for the leader, who ruled for 27 years, and his casket travelled around the country so everyone could pay their last respects.
Jerry Rawlings
Death: Ghana, 2020
Ghana’s former coup leader, revolutionary and president Jerry Rawlings was buried after a long delay – more than 50 days. He died in November 2020 but wasn’t laid to rest until late January. Although the burial had been scheduled following his demise, the council of elders indicated that they were not consulted regarding Togbe Nutifafa I, Rawlings’ traditional name, and would be performing ancient rites later in January, delaying the burial by nearly two months.
Family members had accused the government of appropriating his body for political gain in the elections. Rawlings was finally interred with full military honours at the military cemetery in Accra.
Robert Mugabe
Death: Singapore 2019
After dying in Singapore following his ousting in a coup by Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2017, Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe was set to be buried in Heroes’ Acre, where former freedom fighters were laid to rest.
The Mugabe family, although initially agreeing with this arrangement, claimed later that they were not consulted, insisting on a burial at his rural home.
Reports indicated that Grace, Mugabe’s wife, was miffed that she did not succeed him in power after his nearly 40-year iron-clad reign, rebuffing Mnangagwa’s request for a patriot burial. The stadium was far from full during the ceremony.
John Atta-Mills
Death: Ghana, 2012
Conspiracies swirled around the death of Ghana’s 11th president, John Atta-Mills, who died while in office. Some indicated that he had died before he reached the hospital, while his brother maintained he had suffered a stroke.
Even after he had been buried in Asomdwee Park, Accra, family members claimed that a fraudulent non-governmental organisation was ‘desecrating’ his tomb on his 10th death anniversary by renovating his grave without their permission.
Etienne Tshisekedi
Death: Belgium, 2017
Former Congolese prime minister and leader of the opposition Etienne ‘the Sphinx’ Tshisekedi died in Belgium in 2017. His family was not allowed to return his body to Democratic Republic of Congo while then-president Joseph Kabila was in power, due to a dispute between the two men. It was only after his son Félix came to power in 2018 that he finally was able to repatriate his father’s body, two years later, in May 2019.
Thomas Sankara
Death: Burkina Faso, 1987
Revolutionary leader and Burkinabé president Thomas Sankara was assassinated in 1987 along with 12 others in a bloody coup initiated by one of his own men, Blaise Compaoré. Well known for rejecting the West and neo-colonialism, Sankara was buried in a backwater grave on the outskirts of town that had been repeatedly desecrated before his body was disinterred in 2015 as part of the investigation into his murder, as well as for a proper tomb and burial.
But his family objected to the new tomb that was erected in central Ouagadougou in early 2023 at the place he and his comrades fell, calling it a crime scene, not worthy of a place that would ‘appease hearts’.
Haile Selassie
Death: Ethiopia, 1975
The last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, died in Addis Ababa at the age of 83 in 1975. The ‘Lion of Judah’ had been deposed by Mengistu’s Derg militia after 44 years on the throne in 1974. It was only in 1994 that an Ethiopian court ruled that he was assassinated by strangulation under the hand of the junta.
While the king’s son in exile in London demanded at the time that the Red Cross conduct an autopsy on his father’s body, details of the burial remained secret. The Soviet-backed Derg fell in 1991 and workers excavating the emperor’s palace grounds found his bones in 1992. His remains were placed in a tomb in Bhata church, Addis Ababa, for eight years until his burial in November 2000 on the 25th anniversary of his death at Holy Trinity Cathedral.
Kwame Nkrumah
Death: Romania, 1972
A proponent of pan-Africanism, Ghana president Kwame Nkrumah was deposed in a Western-backed coup in 1966 and went into exile in Guinea. Following treatment for prostate cancer, he died in Romania in 1972. Guinea’s President Sekou Touré took charge of his body, and he was buried in Conakry, unwilling to return it to Ghana under a hostile government. After pressure by regional leaders and promises of a dignified reburial, Nkrumah’s remains were disinterred and returned to Ghana.
The body lay in state at State House, where thousands paid their last respects before it was placed in a vault in Nkroful, his hometown. His body was dug up once again and re-interred for a third time in a memorial park in Accra, despite complaints from some family members. The Nkrumah memorial park was refurbished and reopened in July 2023 by President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government which had strongly criticised Nkrumah’s policies but it has remained a leading tourist attraction.
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