Cops in Zambia arrested former First Lady Esther Lungu, her daughter Chiyeso Katete, and another relative on charges of possession of stolen property, namely an estate in the capital city of Lusaka valued at $1.5 million, the BBC reports on a switch from Senator Bob Menendez and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s decidedly less than credible “actually my wife did it” defenses.
For his part, former President Edgar Lungu, was not implicated in this crime specifically – which the old lady’s mansion is just the tip of the iceberg – but is also no stranger to related legal troubles himself these days. Lungu was defeated in 2021 by current President Hakainde Hichilema after Zambians decided they were not better of than they had been six years earlier. And they were not by objective measures such as national debt and gross domestic product.
Last week Lungu was placed under house arrest for apparently hinting at a coup to return himself to power which, as much as it sounds like an American QAnon fan fiction story from mid-2021, is a little less unrealistic in Sub-Saharan Africa. As such it would appear that Hichilema is just responding to the shit talk accordingly by zeroing in on Lungu and his family’s legal vulnerabilities.