The burial of Omukama Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV on 12 September should have been a moment of national mourning for a king who once held the title of the world’s youngest monarch. Instead, it became the stage for a succession drama that has left the Tooro Kingdom more divided than united. At the centre of the controversy sits a government-brokered Memorandum of Understanding that was meant to protect the dignity of the late king’s final rites. It did not.
Signed on the very day of the burial by representatives of the government, Queen Mother Best Kemigisa, the Musuuga Charles Kamurasi, and the Babiito clan, the MOU was clear. No succession-related ritual, declaration, installation or proclamation was to take place at the Karambi Royal Tombs. No claimant was to enter the tombs during the burial. The point was simple: bury the king first, settle the throne later. The Attorney General even advised suspending the traditional nine coffee beans ritual pending resolution of the dispute.
What followed was the opposite. At St John’s Cathedral, the Musuuga stood before mourners and declared Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma the new king. Later, at the royal tombs, Kijanangoma cast the nine coffee beans into Oyo’s grave — the very act the MOU and government advice had sought to prevent. Reports speak of a tense confrontation involving the Queen Mother that delayed proceedings. The ritual still went ahead.
This was not a minor procedural slip. The Musuuga was a signatory to the agreement. Kijanangoma, the man advanced as successor, performed the central succession rite. Together they turned a funeral into a coronation by another name. The government has since refused to gazette Kijanangoma, citing the unresolved dispute over whether Oyo left a biological son named in a 2022 will. That decision is telling. Even the state that helped broker the MOU now treats the outcome as incomplete and contested.
Supporters of the Babiito process argue that culture cannot wait for lawyers. In Tooro tradition, they say, the prince who places the coffee beans assumes the mantle. Without a successor performing the rites, the burial itself risks cultural incompleteness. They maintain the clan followed its own processes after no clear, publicly presented heir from the late king’s immediate line was produced. There is weight to the cultural argument. Traditional institutions do not operate on the same timelines or paperwork as the courts.
Yet the counter is equally strong. An agreement was signed. It was specific. It was broken on the same day. When representatives of the very institutions that signed the document proceed to do precisely what was prohibited, questions of good faith arise. For the Queen Mother and those who insist on the will, the events look like a calculated attempt to create irreversible facts on the ground while the nation watched a king being buried. Starting a potential reign under that shadow is not a clean beginning.
The deeper problem is institutional. Uganda’s restored kingdoms sit in an awkward space — cultural authorities recognised by the state yet frequently entangled in succession fights that draw in the army, the Attorney General and the presidency. The Tooro case is not unique. What makes it sharper is the timing: a young king dies after a long illness, a will surfaces claiming a hidden son, a popular media figure is chosen by the clan, and a carefully negotiated truce collapses within hours.
Watchdog Uganda has long tracked how power is exercised in the grey zones between tradition, family and the state. This episode reveals the limits of paper agreements when cultural stakes are high. It also shows how quickly mourning can be instrumentalised. The people of Tooro deserved a burial free of political theatre. They did not get one.
Whether Kijanangoma ultimately sits on the throne will be decided by a mixture of clan authority, possible court challenges, and political calculation in Kampala. What cannot be undone is the manner of the claim. An MOU designed to protect dignity was set aside. A succession ritual the government asked to suspend was performed. The stain is not merely procedural. It is the public impression that the rules were flexible only for one side.
For a kingdom still healing from the loss of a long-reigning monarch, that is a difficult place to begin.
The post LAWRENCE KAZOOBA: Tooro’s Bitter Burial: When an MOU Met the Coffee Beans appeared first on Watchdog Uganda.