By Kolawole Ojebisi
In what appears to be a scene from a well-scripted movie, the hearse, knot of mourners and rehearsed dirge intended as accompaniment to the funeral service of former Zambian president, Edgar Lungu, will not proceed as planned.
This is following a ruling by a South-African judge on Wednesday, ordering the burial service of Lungu, already underway in Zambia, to be suspended midway.
The verdict was prompted by the brewing hostility between the family of the departed ex-president and the incumbent government of President Hakainde Hichilema, which came to a head after Zungu breathed his last.
Hichilema had planned to play the role of a chief mourner by leading a state funeral for his predecessor in Zambia, a decision that didn’t sit well with Lungu’s family.
In a bid to thwart Hichilema’s plan Lungu’s family blocked his body from being repatriated, saying he would not have wanted his successor and rival at his funeral.
The Zambian government, however filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the burial in South Africa.
Lungu,was a rival of President Hakainde Hichilema, who wanted to lead a state funeral for his predecessor in Zambia.
Delivering a ruling on the matter on Wednesday, a Gauteng region High Court judge said that, after an agreement between the parties, “respondents undertake not to proceed with the funeral or burial of the late president”.
The ruling was delivered while Lungu’s widow and other mourners were already gathered in the church expecting the commencement of the funeral service.
According to the court the case will be heard on August 4.
The court proceedings as well as the disrupted funeral service were simultaneously broadcast by the national television, SABC.
SABC showed live images of people gathered for the service for Lungu, president from 2015 to 2021, which was suspended midway.
The adjournment “is extending the pain, the grief, that the family and the people are going through”, Zambian lawmaker Chanda Katotobwe, part of the delegation present at the memorial service, told SABC News.
Lungu died on June 5 at the age of 68 while receiving specialised treatment in a clinic in Pretoria, a hospital in South Africa.
The cause of the former president’s death has not been announced even weeks after breathing his last.
