{"id":82669,"date":"2026-04-27T20:28:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T20:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election"},"modified":"2026-04-27T20:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T20:33:12","slug":"if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election","title":{"rendered":"If They Can Steal the Body What About the Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sishuwa writes:<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Africa-Press – Zambia. <\/strong><\/span>The belief by the family of former president Edgar Lungu, publicly confirmed by his elder sister, that President Hichilema was, either directly or indirectly through his agents, desperate to access and secure certain items from Lungu\u2019s body for ritual purposes or reasons bordering on witchcraft appears to explain two contradictory positions:<\/p>\n

On the one hand, nearly everything done by the Lungu family since his death in June 2025 seems to have been designed to deny Hichilema access to Lungu\u2019s body. On the other, Hichilema\u2019s conduct since Lungu\u2019s death suggests that he was always going to do whatever it takes to secure access to Lungu\u2019s corpse, perhaps because the president saw the issue as existential or a matter of life and death. I wrote about this in June 2025 and the evidence is below.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/ssishuwa\/status\/1938633087065186738?s=20<\/p>\n

When the government grabbed Lungu\u2019s body from the morgue, I wrote an opinion piece in which I asked if Hichilema was finally going to pledge that he will stay away from the funeral since he or his representatives had finally accessed the body. Here is the evidence:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/ssishuwa\/status\/2047338222997405783?s=20<\/p>\n

You will recall that over the last ten months, I repeatedly stated that outside the legal process, the dispute over Lungu\u2019s burial will only end when Hichilema, assuming he had no personal interest in the matter, pledges that he will stay away from the funeral, as per Lungu\u2019s wishes. I said this as far back as September last year. Here is an example of the evidence in support of this point:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/ssishuwa\/status\/1965085488911646926?s=20<\/p>\n

Remember that it was Hichilema\u2019s failure to publicly pledge that he will stay away from the funeral that prompted the family to consider burying Lungu in South Africa. In response to my repeated requests for Hichilema to stay away, both the government and Zambezi supremacists argued that the president could not stay away because his position as Head of State obliged him to preside over the funeral. (What has changed now?)<\/p>\n

The recent decision by the government to grab the body from the morgue without a court order and in a clear violation of a standing court order that any access to Lungu\u2019s body must only be done in the presence of his family and his ADC only served to confirm public suspicion about the role of the occult in this dispute.<\/p>\n

Please note that the person who signed for the collection of the body from the morgue was an official at the Zambian High Commission in Pretoria, not the South African police. This makes sense because the police was never part of the court case before the High Court, whose August 2025 order the government claimed it was executing when grabbing the body.<\/p>\n

Now we are being told by the Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha that the government has never had PHYSICAL custody of the body \u2014 as if they only had online or virtual access. Yet the same official had earlier issued a statement that the government had taken possession of Lungu\u2019s remains.<\/p>\n

No one knows where the government took the body after collecting it from the morgue and at what point it surrendered the same to the police. What is not in dispute is that Hichilema finally had access to the body, either through his agents or virtually (as implied by Kabesha) and when they were done with it, they dumped the body with SAPS, perhaps to provide cover for their actions.<\/p>\n

Then yesterday, Kabesha said: \u201cThe President has made it clear, that if his absence from the funeral will help facilitate a fitting send-off for the former President, he is prepared to stay away. This was communicated to the family eleven months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the problem of cooking cover ups; one can never be too careful. The truth is that Edgar Lungu was not yet dead \u201celeven months ago\u201d! As I wrote yesterday, either Kabesha is lying or Hichilema miraculously knew beforehand that Lungu was going to die and communicated to the family in advance that he would stay away from the funeral.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Zambia<\/span> Follow Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sishuwa writes:   Africa-Press – Zambia. The belief by the family of former president Edgar Lungu, publicly confirmed by his elder sister, that President Hichilema was, either directly or indirectly through his agents, desperate to access and secure certain items from Lungu\u2019s body for ritual purposes or reasons bordering on witchcraft appears to explain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":82667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[233],"class_list":["post-82669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-zambia"],"yoast_head":"\nIf They Can Steal the Body What About the Election - Zambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The belief by the family of former president Edgar Lungu, publicly confirmed by his elder sister, that President Hichile ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If They Can Steal the Body What About the Election\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The belief by the family of former president Edgar Lungu, publicly confirmed by his elder sister, that President Hichile ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-27T20:28:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-27T20:33:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2026\/04\/sm_1777321969.046629.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"482\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"If They Can Steal the Body What About the Election\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-27T20:28:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-27T20:33:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election\"},\"wordCount\":719,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2026\/04\/sm_1777321969.046629.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Zambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/if-they-can-steal-the-body-what-about-the-election\",\"name\":\"If They Can Steal the Body What About the Election - 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