- Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, now known as King Edward Rukidi Nyabongo I, was crowned Tooro’s 14th Omukama on Tuesday, after clan elders selected him over the late king’s young son.
- The Queen Mother and a princess had disputed the succession, citing a will naming a biological son as heir, with the dispute reportedly reaching President Museveni before the coronation went ahead.
The battle over royal succession playing out in the Zulu Kingdom this year has a parallel in Uganda’s Tooro Kingdom, though the outcome there took a different turn. In both cases, a will was contested, but while Queen Regent Mantfombi’s will naming Prince Misuzulu as Zulu King ultimately prevailed, in Tooro, the ruling clan’s elders overruled the wishes attributed to the late king.
King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, who ruled Tooro for more than three decades after ascending the throne at age three, died in the United States in August, aged 34, following treatment for cancer. A purported 2022 will, cited by his mother, Queen Mother Best Kemigisa, and his sister, Princess Ruth Komuntale, reportedly named a biological son as his heir.
Instead, the Babiito ruling clan selected Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a cousin of the late king and a former television news anchor, as his successor. The clan’s leadership argued the boy named in the will was born in the United States and unfamiliar with Babiito culture, and that his mother was not of royal blood, meaning he did not meet the requirements to become Omukama.
The dispute was serious enough that it reportedly reached President Yoweri Museveni directly, with a formal legal opinion submitted challenging the succession before the kingdom’s Supreme Council endorsed Kijanangoma and set a coronation date.
Kijanangoma, now 56, was crowned on Tuesday as King Edward Rukidi Nyabongo I, the 14th Omukama of Tooro, at Karuziika Palace in Fort Portal. The coronation, attended by more than 50,000 people, began with a night of secret rituals, sacred invocations and ritual cleansings led by clan elders, intended to spiritually bind the new king to the ancestral Babiito lineage. He walked through the streets of Fort Portal accompanied by supporters carrying lit reeds, before a symbolic mock battle at the palace entrance marked the formal transfer of power.
President Museveni, who holds the ceremonial title of Omujwara Kondo, or crown bearer, within Tooro’s royal institution, attended as chief guest, alongside government officials and cultural leaders.
