Twenty-nine days, one court bus, no plea: Mundubile and Zulu surface in Solwezi — and the case against them starts to take shape

The bus came first, and the crowd saw it before the gates did. When the Zambia Correctional Service vehicle carrying Brian Mundubile and Makebi Zulu turned into the Solwezi Magistrates' Court premises on Friday morning, supporters who had waited through the heat surged forward, cheering and waving. The two men at the centre of Zambia's post-election treason case — unseen in public for 29 days — waved back. By all accounts they appeared jovial.

What followed inside was brief and procedural, but it marked the first time the NRPUP presidential candidate and his running mate have stood before a court since their arrest on 27 August, two weeks after the election they lost. Solwezi Principal Resident Magistrate Mambwe Mukonde adjourned the matter to 5 October for plea and possible commencement of trial.

The charges before the Solwezi court are not the treason counts that have held the pair at Mukobeko Maximum Correctional Facility in Kabwe. They are sedition charges — seditious practices under Section 57 of the Penal Code — formally laid at Kabwe Central Police Station on 11 September, and they turn on what the two men said, not on what the state alleges they plotted. According to the charge details reported from the courtroom, Mundubile is accused of a Facebook post claiming the NRPUP was leading the election according to its Parallel Vote Tabulation and calling on the Electoral Commission of Zambia to resume a suspended count. Zulu is accused of posting that Mundubile would address the nation and urging the public to remain on standby; their lawyer, Sakwiba Sikota, has said the second count rests on Zulu referring to Mundubile as president while reiterating the claim of victory.

Sedition is, on paper, a bailable offence in Zambia. That the two remain in custody is a function of the separate treason file — a charge on which they have never appeared before any court. Director of Public Prosecutions Gilbert Phiri has defended that delay publicly, saying investigations are still ongoing. The defence's response, repeated at the gate on Friday, is that a month is long enough to hold a man on a charge you have not yet read out to a judge.

Friday's appearance also put geography on the charge sheet. The alleged Facebook posts were made in the days after the 13 August election; the complaint was processed in Kabwe; the accused are held in Kabwe; the court of first hearing is in Solwezi, hundreds of kilometres from where the posts were written and from where the men lived. Opposition figures have begun describing the movement of detainees between far-flung jurisdictions as a tactic in itself — an allegation the government rejects, insisting every case follows ordinary criminal procedure.

The politics outside the courtroom are moving in parallel. The European Union has hailed Zambia as a beacon of democracy while pressing Lusaka on rule-of-law concerns in resolutions that specifically reference the detentions; the government's response to that resolution has itself come under fire this week. Prison authorities at Mukobeko have begun requiring written clearance from Correctional Service headquarters in Lusaka before visitors can see the treason and sedition accused — a rule Sikota has called discriminatory and unconstitutional, noting no other inmates at the facility face it.

For the record of the day: the accused are presumed innocent; no evidence on the treason count has been tested in court; and the sedition case, as of Friday, consists of two social-media posts and an adjournment. On 5 October, Solwezi will do it again.

Sources: News Diggers, "Mundubile, Makebi appear in Solwezi court on sedition charges" (26 Sep 2026); Zambia Monitor, "Crowds cheer as Mundubile, Zulu arrive Solwezi court" (25 Sep 2026); Mwebantu, "Solwezi court adjourns Mundubile seditious practices case" (25 Sep 2026); ZNBC (26 Sep 2026); Lusaka Times on the Mukobeko visitor restrictions (23 Sep 2026).