Renowned lawyer and political commentator Sakwiba Sikota has questioned the timing and sincerity of posthumous calls for reconciliation following the passing of Zambia’s sixth Republican President, Edgar Chagwa Lungu. Speaking in a one-on-one interview with Costa Mwansa on Diamond TV, Sikota cautioned that unity cannot be imposed through speeches after death when efforts to reconcile during life were either absent or avoided.
“If you couldn’t reconcile with the man when he was breathing, why do you expect his supporters to reconcile now that he’s gone simply?” Sikota asked pointedly.
He expressed concern that the appeals for peace, while well-intended, may come across as superficial if not matched by introspection and honesty about how the former president was treated. “You don’t provoke someone in life and expect peace in death,” he said.
According to Sikota, reconciliation must be earned, not declared. He emphasized that genuine healing requires mutual recognition of past actions, including those that may have deepened political wounds. “Reconciliation is not a speech,” he noted. “It’s about action, respect, and accountability.”
Sikota also urged leaders to resist the urge to use the funeral as a political stage, warning that public mourning should not become a platform for expedient narratives. His tone was reflective rather than accusatory a call for all sides to examine their roles honestly.
“You can’t humiliate a man for years and then ask his followers to forget overnight,” he said. “That is not reconciliation. That is denial.”
With the funeral drawing near, Sikota’s comments offer a timely reminder that reconciliation is a process not an event. His remarks invite not division, but deeper thought on what true unity looks like and how it must be grounded in truth, not performance.
Well said state counsel Sakwiba Sikota. He was sick away for months and died on his own without due care by those who should have done so. Let lessons be picked
What was there that needede reconciliation between HH and ECL. It is ECL who never reconciled with the nman he abused and tortured because he thought he would still be President after 2021. Remember he even promised to re arrest HH if he won.
@Musaninyoze, the bitterness of losing two elections to a ‘novice’ in a row made your man to lose his head and refuse to recognize ECL president, leading him to that senseless act of disturbing the presidential motorcade in Mongu. Elsewhere, that man would have been history on that day, aletola nobwapona.
Care is given by the hospital, not ‘those who should do so’. There is nothing to reconcile. just bury and forget. Why should one man’s death cause so much fuss. In an interview on ZNBC before even Sata was very sick, the man confessed in an interview that he could not manage the presidency because his health was not good. Can his death be a shock?
Who wants reconciliation? We want all thieves to pay!
Did the late president ever apologise to HH for the brutal treatment lungu meted out to HH ……..
Did lungu ever apologise to the Zambian people for unleashing cader violence on them ????…….
HH was not even allowed to meet anyone, he was not allowed to travel freely to provinces , the final decision being up to DC if he is allowed to enter a province……..
he was even banned from attending the funereal of KK…….imagine that
Did lungu apologise for all that. ???
FWD2031