President Hakainde Hichilema Must Stop Being Cruel

By Hopewell Chin’ono

President Hakainde Hichilema Must Stop Being Cruel

Africans are really cruel to each other. I have criticised Edgar Lungu throughout his presidency, but I do not understand how his daughter is expected to come and start politicking in Parliament before her father is even buried. I simply do not understand it.

Yes, the law might say so, but the law is made by human beings. The law is made by people, and every law in the world has a caveat that can be applied with basic common sense and basic decency.

I wish Zambians would stop being cruel to each other like this. Their former president has been lying in a mortuary in South Africa for over five months now, and instead of resolving that indignity, they pile more pressure on a grieving daughter. Why are Africans cruel to each other like this?

The reason she has not been able to attend Parliament is straightforward: she has been absent because she has been dealing with the unresolved death and unburied body of her own father, something no child should have to endure for this long. Any society with compassion would understand that grief, shock, and an international dispute over burial arrangements naturally make parliamentary attendance impossible.

Removing her for “continued absence” under these circumstances is not just legally rigid, it is morally tone-deaf and politically foolish. Her party will almost certainly retain that seat, and this move will backfire badly on the ruling party and on President Hichilema. It paints the government as vindictive at a time when empathy should have guided their decisions.

Does the president not have advisors? How could they not foresee that punishing a grieving daughter, while her father remains unburied in a foreign country, would harden public sympathy towards her and erode the ruling party’s moral standing?

You expect this kind of rigid reasoning from uneducated cadres and street-level supporters, but not from a president and not from a government. “The law says this, the law says that” is the type of argument you hear in the streets. Leadership, however, is supposed to rise above that level and apply both the law and common sense.

Politics and the presidency should operate the same way. A president and a government should not behave like overzealous street activists. They should interpret the law with fairness, compassion and basic human decency, especially when dealing with a grieving family and an unburied former head of state.

The president and his government should be ashamed by the fact that this MP has not been able to attend Parliament because they are busy fighting the family and blocking them from carrying out the wishes of the former president. This entire situation has been created by the president’s insistence on presiding over a funeral for a man who explicitly said he did not want him anywhere near his burial.

It is embarrassing, not just for Zambia but for Africans as a whole. It has become a spectacle, a public display of pettiness and vindictiveness at the very moment when dignity, compassion and leadership are required.

For real leaders, the issue here is not about what the law says. The first question any responsible leader would ask is simple: why has she not been able to attend Parliament? The answer is equally simple: her father is not buried, and the state has helped create that situation.

A proper leader would say, “Gentlemen and ladies, before we talk about parliamentary attendance, let us fix the real problem.” The real problem is the massive national indignity of a former president lying in a mortuary for over five months. That should shame any nation, regardless of politics. The duty of the state is to act fairly and to remove obstacles, not to weaponise them.

If Edgar Lungu said he did not want Hakainde Hichilema presiding over his funeral, why then is President Hichilema insisting on presiding over a funeral of someone who made his wishes clear? Why? These are the questions that real leaders ask.

Supporters, cadres and cheerleaders will not ask those questions, because they simply follow the wind. But leaderst rue leaders are expected to rise above petty politics and focus on restoring dignity, fairness and common sense.

As an award-winning investigative journalist and Zimbabwean filmmaker, Hopewell Chin’ono has been repeatedly arrested for uncovering the truth and countering injustice.