ZAMBIA'S FORMER PRESIDENT CHILUBA DIES

SECOND Republican president, Frederick Chiluba is dead.

The late Chiluba's spokesperson Emmanuel Mwamba confirmed the death of the former president who died at his resident in Lusaka's Kabulonga area shortly after mid night on Saturday morning.

According to Mwamba, Chiluba had a normal full day and in the afternoon had meetings with his lawyers and later with some members of parliament.

He said after the meetings, Chiluba complained that he was not feeling well after 18:00 hours prompting the family to call his personal physician.

After being attended to by the doctor, he was asked to rest and insisted he was alright but went to bed around 19:00 hours.

Later in the night, his doctor was called again that his condition had worsened and was pronounced dead shortly after mid night.

His body is laying at Ambassador St. Anne's Funeral Palour.FREDERICK Chiluba is gone. His journey on this earth has ended. No one can add anything or take away anything from Chiluba today. This is how final death is. It is a definitive end of the process we call life.

All human beings must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Szuma Chien said, “Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather.” To die having served one’s people selflessly is weightier than Mount Tai, but to live a selfish life is lighter than a feather.

Death is a mystery and yet is as real as life itself. We may not like to think about it but it is as real as the breath we take. It is only a matter of time before the announcement is made that this one or that one has died. Yesterday, it was an announcement about Chiluba’s death.

One day this announcement will be about each one of us. It is no wonder that some say that death is a great equaliser. You may be rich or poor, great or small, politically powerful or weak, but death will harvest all of us. The passing of somebody that we have known in so many ways – pleasant and unpleasant – and probably taken for granted, calls for serious reflection and deep meditation.

Sometimes, there is nothing one can do to save something that must die. And we are reminded in Ecclesiastes 2:1: “Everything that happens in this world happens at a time God chooses.

He set the time for our birth and a time for death …” We therefore have to be comfortable with the fact that one day we will die. This will help us to have a realistic view of the things that we do. It will help us to learn to value things that are important and ignore things that are not important in this life. A correct view of our mortality helps us to direct our energies in the most productive and beneficial way, in the service of the common good.

If we know that we are just passing through this world to do our small part in the relay of life, we will try our best to do those things which are good, which are useful, which are productive, which are enduring.
Although death is a difficult subject to think about, an inevitable reality that is often difficult to accept, it has a sobering effect on all of us.

Death helps us to have helpful attitude towards material possessions, how we acquire them and use them. What is the use of doing all sorts of wrong things to acquire wealth when you can leave it the very next day? None of us can guarantee that we will be around to enjoy the wealth we have acquired for ourselves. This is why it is foolish to be a thief, a plunderer, to be corrupt.
[Sydney] an  extract from THE POST