Former Zambian President Edgar Lungu has accused the government of persecuting him, after his wife was summoned for interrogation.
Esther Lungu is wanted for questioning by the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) in connection with 15 flats she owns in Lusaka. The commission alleges that the properties may have been dubiously acquired, which she denies.
Addressing lawmakers for the former governing party, the Patriotic Front, who went to see him and his wife in show of solidarity, Mr Lungu said his family was being unfairly targeted.
“You don’t have to be very intelligent to know that after her [Esther Lungu] it’s me. So this is a sequence, it’s like peeling the onion so am ready,” said Mr Lungu, whose two children have in the recent past also been summoned for questioning.
“They want me out of it politics completely – but you can kill the body and you can’t kill the soul and you can’t kill the ideas,” Mr Lungu continued.
“I will be able to answer to whatever charges even if the say I am hiding under the immunity, I am not hiding under the immunity,” he said.
Mrs Lungu on the other has declared her innocence.
Mr Lungu’s party last year lost power to incumbent Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development.
Several former government officials have been appearing for interrogation with some of their property seized as part of the new government’s fight against corruption.
