Seven o two the Africa Reports.

In the Africa Report aims to put a spotlight on stories that you need to know from the rest of the continent.

Everyone again will also include ourselves because we are part of this continent.

Have you ever heard somebody say, have you been to Africa.

One of the stories I've been watching over a number of weeks, now months even, is the saga around the former Zambian President Edgar Lungu, who died on the fifth of June whilst receiving medical attention here in South Africa.

Now three months later, his body is still here in Johannesburg and there's this bitter dispute between his family and President Hakainde Hichilema's government over what is to be done with his remains.

It's a story that just beggars belief, isn't it.

What is it all about?

We've invited an historian to come and explain all of this to us.

Doctor Shua Sishua is Zambian historian and senior lecturer at the Department of History at Stellenbosch University.

Thank you so much for your time and welcome to seven or two Breakfast.

Thank you so much for being in Bogan and good morning listeners.

As succinctly as you can.

What is this dispute about.

Well, it's about essentially, it's about who should attend the barrier and the funeral my president.

The family believes that I've stated that the former president left them clear instruction that he didn't want by his successor a kind age leman to attendee his funeral in the event that he died because of how you treated results the government had had dealt with him.

The London government, on that side, insists that the president should preside by a state funeral and that it's a matter of protocol the states they allowed to conduct to the funeral because see that's what the state has done in instances of other former leaders who have died.

And really about that disputy on either side trying to assay that what they think is their right, that I brought us here an inference of all their interests, they have gone to court to push for that outcome.

Gosh, it's that classic balance between the wishes of the deceased right and those who remain and I mean for ordinary Africans everywhere on the continent, funerals aren't just private affairs.

Certainly for countries they can be moments of national symbolism.

Where do you strike the balance.

It's very difficult because on the one hand, you see in the African culture, when somebody dies the body belongs to the family or the next of kings, that the ones would determine what should happen to their remains.

Example, and in this case, the family is correct in assetting their rights to say, if we don't want to began to be present at our funeral, it's see and reasonable for you to insist that you must be present.

On the other hand, you have the Zampian state that says, hey, we want to want to give this manager infight barrier because he wasn't just an ordninary citizen.

He the former head of state and is entitled all sort of to state honors that the government can extend to him.

Of course, there are also beliefs around the family to say, we don't want this man to be present, essentially because they believe that maybe the president wants his body for out purpose sales.

Example, that's a statement made by the eldest sister to the less president.

So you can understand the suspicion from the family on the basis of that side.

I don't know how accute that is, but that's the belief and the insisting by the government to say the president might should be there.

Only see those kinds of beliefs.

So it's not even just that the state wants to give him a state level type funeral.

The current president insists in insists on attending.

That's correct.

And I mean if he had stepped aside after the president died, if he had committed the publicly to say fine, you don't want the president would designate my the vice president for example, somebody else to preside about the funeral.

I think that long will or have w long been buried in Osaka.

It was really the sailure by the president to meet that wish on the part of the family, to say can you please stay away that forced the family to consider burying him in Sooth Africa.

And then the government moved an eleventh hour to brooke the funeral which was under underway by taking a court action that they want that would would do give them the result they want, which is to get the body from the family and go and buried inca.

Where is the standard legally?

Now?

All right, now it is back in the High Court.

The Pectoria High Court had made a ruling in fill of the Zambia and State some time back, and then the family filed an application direct appeal for director appeal to the Constitutional Court.

Yesterday, the Constitutional Court dismissed that the application to hear them the matter directed without going through the normal processes of passing through the Supreme Court of Appeal.

And you have to understand the concord reasoning here.

You know in recent times what you have seen ana litigants skipping processes where from the if you lose the case in the High Court, rather than going to the Supreme Court, you rush directly to the Constitutional Court.

And therefore the concorde is a globed with so many matters that could have been resolved that lower courts example, if those platforms had been utilized.

So the Court in decided yesterday, can you go back to the High Court necky your case before the High Court judges that you want to appeal this case and if they grant you that, you can go to the Supreme Court appeal and the case would still end up before us if you're unsatisfied.

So it remains in court.

But the two parties the government has sent a team also to continue the negotiation to see if this matter can be resolved outside the court process.

What has this done for President lem standing within Zambia.

I think that it has defend poorization because many Zambias see you, look, if you simply agree to the family, whether it's unreasonable there, whether whether that demands and resierable or not, is not the issue.

The issue that they feel that they're uncomfortable with you presiding by the General for the sake of national unity.

For example, he could have simply stepped aside if he has no personal interest in the General.

So it was really that leadership style of refusing to recognize how this divisive moment can be a moment of unity by simply saying, listen, I understand these people are grieving, they want to put your love to rest, and I'm going to step aside.

And Zambians have failed to understand why the President has to do that.

But there also are the Zambians who support his position that look, he is our head of state and the head of state should have the duty to preside over national events of this kind, especially if the General attracts other heads of state from the region.

And beyond because you want a president to represented there, so that porization has continued even in death.

And you have to understand that the relationship between Lungu and Eachlema was very, very bad when the President Eama was in and afterlong Aims lost part to each lem so that the deep divisions you see is simply a continuation of the nature of the relationship the two had in life.

I think you've explained it to us.

We're up to speed with that and we understand it fully.

Thank you so much for your time, Doctor Sisua Sishua, who's a Zambian historian and a senior lecturer at the departner well a senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University.

I think we've got the gist of that, and if anything, it sounds like former President Edgar Lungu was correct about the incumbent, wasn't he