Former cabinet minister Makhenkesi Stofile's last wish was granted when President Jacob Zuma stayed away from his funeral this week. The Sunday Times has learnt from several sources in the Eastern Cape and national governments that Zuma pulled out of the official programme for the service after being repeatedly told by family representatives that Stofile had not wanted him to speak at his funeral.It is understood that Stofile made his last wish a few weeks before he died as he had always been aware that he would be granted an official funeral and protocol required Zuma to address it as head of government.His family forced Zuma to pull out by putting together a list of powerful ANC figures opposed to his leadership, such as Trevor Manuel, Kgalema Motlanthe and Sipho Pityana - and insisted he would speak only after they had taken the podium.story_article_left1The family also registered their unhappiness about the involvement of the government in the funeral arrangements with Eastern Cape premier Phumulo Masualle.When government representatives raised concern about the list of speakers the family had lined up, the Stofiles would not budge and insisted on no changes.The family remained firm despite pleas from senior government leaders who are Zuma sympathisers. Unimpressed by this, Zuma withdrew from the funeral on Tuesday.The withdrawal came a day after Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe had announced on Monday that Zuma would deliver Stofile's eulogy.Zuma instead opted to travel to Nairobi in Kenya to attend the sixth summit of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development and send his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, to the funeral.Government sources said Zuma had not attended the summit before, delegating Ramaphosa to attend instead.Earlier this year, Stofile told the Sunday Times in an unpublished interview that the Nkandla saga was "an unnecessary headache"."I can say without any fear of contradiction that members of the ANC and South Africans in general are unhappy with what is going on ... if anyone says they are satisfied, they are just lying," he said shortly after the Nkandla court judgment.A government official close to the family said Stofile had felt betrayed by Zuma's leadership of both the ANC and the country. "It is like a person who sleeps with your wife and then comes to your funeral. story_article_right2You don't mistreat a person that way and then want to speak at his funeral," said the official, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.Stofile's funeral, at Fort Hare University in Alice, was effectively used as a launch pad by a strong lobby group seeking to force a leadership change in the ANC before its elective congress scheduled for December next year. Speaker after speaker assumed a clearly anti-Zuma posture, with Pityana openly telling Zuma to resign because he had failed to lead.Stofile's son-in-law and family spokesman, Siphiwe Mpye, told an anecdote about Stofile saying that in the ANC, when comrades tapped leaders on the shoulder to ask them to step down after being shown the error of their ways, the leaders were dignified enough to step down."Everything said by those speakers ... was a reflection of Reverend Stofile's concerns about the country and the state of the movement," Mpye said.Ramaphosa also appeared to show support for the anti-Zuma group, using his eulogy to speak out against the standoff between the Hawks and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. He said this was a sign of a "government at war with itself".hunterq@sundaytimes.co.za..