Thousands of mourners packed Saint John's Cathedral in Fort Portal on Saturday, September 12, gathering beneath a portrait of the man Guinness World Records certified as the planet's youngest reigning monarch. King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, the Omukama of Uganda's Tooro Kingdom, had taken the throne when he was three years old, reigning for 31 years.
© AFP via Getty ImagesHe died on August 27, at 34, while undergoing cancer treatment in the United States, according to a statement from Tooro's prime minister, Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki. But burying him has proven far easier than agreeing on who comes next.
The prime minister's original announcement was meant to head off exactly this kind of uncertainty. "His Majesty leaves behind a Prince as his heir, whose identity will be formally revealed at the appropriate time, in accordance with the traditions and customs of Tooro Kingdom," Rwomiire Akiiki said in the statement confirming the king's death, reported at the time by Uganda's Monitor and NTV. Instead, the withheld name has become the center of a public rupture between the kingdom's royal succession committee and the king's own mother and sister.
The 21-member Babiito royal committee, the traditional body charged with settling questions of lineage and succession, first turned to a cousin of the late king: George Desmond Kamurasi, 36, captain and goalkeeper for SE Dons, a club playing in the ninth tier of English football out of Crayford, southeast London. Fifteen of the 18 committee members who voted backed him. Kamurasi said no. A committee member, Fr Charles Oyo, told ESPN he cited other responsibilities, reportedly including reluctance to leave family in England and an FA Vase qualifying match scheduled the same weekend as King Oyo's funeral.
© AFP via Getty ImagesIn Tooro tradition, refusing the throne once formally selected is considered a disgrace, and Kamurasi has not commented publicly on his decision.
The committee's next pick was Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a news anchor and editor at Uganda's state broadcaster, UBC, announced as successor earlier this month. The late king's immediate family rejected that choice outright.
Princess Ruth Komuntale, the king's sister, has accused what she called "evil vultures" of conspiring against her and the Queen Mother, Best Kemigisa. She produced a document she said King Oyo drafted in 2022, naming "a biological son" as his heir without identifying him by name, a claim that reportedly surprised much of the Tooro elite, who say they had never heard of any such son and did not include his name when the succession vote was held.
The committee's chairman, Omusuuga Charles Karumasi, defended the process on Saturday: "We have done everything in observance of the culture and traditions of Tooro. We must all preserve peace and serenity."
The Queen Mother, for her part, has said the standoff cost her family more than a disputed crown. She has charged that the army withdrew palace security after her son's death, leaving her and other royals effectively confined to the residence, according to statements reported alongside the funeral coverage. In her own public remarks, she asked the warring factions to set the fight aside, at least for now. "I also appeal to those fighting over the throne: please, there will be time for all of that," she said. "Let us grieve and bury my son King Oyo."
© Getty ImagesUganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, sent a statement of his own to be read at Saturday's ceremony, urging the Batoro people toward "peaceful and lawful means" of resolving the dispute and pledging to work with whoever ultimately takes the throne, "just as we did with His Highness Oyo." Tooro is one of four traditional kingdoms Uganda officially recognizes, institutions that hold no formal political power but retain deep cultural loyalty among their subjects. The kingdoms were abolished after independence and restored only in 1993, a history that makes questions of legitimate succession especially fraught.
Behind the political standoff sits a more personal grief. King Oyo was a fixture on the world stage almost from infancy, introduced to figures from Nelson Mandela to Muammar Gaddafi, who befriended the Tooro royal family for years before his own death in 2011.
"This is one of those deaths, the Bob Marley kind, that one never heals from," Ugandan analyst Timothy Kalyegira wrote in a eulogy posted to social media. "Not Oyo, not that likeable young man, not at 34. That's what makes it so painful." At his sister's side during the burial, the tribute was simpler. "He had a gift to make people laugh," Princess Ruth Komuntale said. "He always knew how to brighten my day."
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