By Hon. Dr Elly Karuhanga
Tooro has lost a King. A mother has lost her son, a sister her brother, and a Royal Family one of its own. Yet, even before the tears have dried, disagreement over succession threatens to divide one of Uganda’s oldest and most beautiful cultural institutions.
I do not write to determine who is right or wrong, nor do I presume to tell the Batooro who their King should be. I write as an elder, a lawyer, a friend of the Royal Family and, perhaps importantly in this particular debate, as the person who moved the motion for the constitutional recognition of traditional and cultural leaders during the making of the 1995 Constitution.
I believed then, as I believe today, that Uganda must modernise without becoming culturally rootless. Our kingdoms preserve our languages, customs, histories and identities, and these things matter because a people must know where they came from if they are to know confidently where they are going.
Nor is this merely a Batooro affair. My daughter is married to a Mutooro, and I have a grandchild who is Mutooro, as families across Uganda are joined across regions, cultures and kingdoms by marriage and friendship. When one Ugandan cultural family hurts, the pain does not stop at the boundaries of a kingdom.
We have always admired the Batooro for their beautiful culture, their gentle language, their courtesy, humility and softness of manner. At this difficult hour, I appeal to them not to lose those qualities, but to make the very gentleness for which they are known the instrument through which this disagreement is resolved.
History should make all of us humble about disputes of succession because there is nothing uniquely Batooro about them. Rwanda knew Rucunshu, Britain endured disputed crowns and civil wars, and our own history in Ankole tells us just how far a disagreement over a throne can travel once pride, faction and power take command.
The quarrel after Omugabe Ntare V’s death in 1895 should teach us something. There was no agreed successor, and while many chiefs and powerful figures looked to Prince Igumira, a famous warrior with a large following, others rallied around the young Kahaya, whose cause was championed by Nuwa Mbaguta and eventually secured with British support. The struggle did not end there: it would contribute to the subduing of Igara and, in time, to the death of my own grandfather, a reminder that succession quarrels can travel far beyond the palace and leave wounds in families and communities for generations.
I learnt another lesson about kingdoms much more recently and much more personally. In 1993, I was among the Banyankore who supported the restoration of the Kingdom of Ankole and, relying on our understanding of the law at the time, we crowned Prince John Barigye as Omugabe. Government declared our actions null and void, and I personally engaged President Museveni on the matter, but to no avail.
I did not agree with Government then, but experience teaches us that wishing Government away does not make Government disappear. Cultural institutions exist within a Republic, within a Constitution and within a wider political and legal order, and any durable settlement in Tooro must therefore involve respectful engagement with the central Government rather than treating it as an outsider to the problem. Government should not choose the King, but neither can a realistic search for peace pretend that Government has no role to play.
There are moments in human affairs when disagreement is real, deep and even bitter. I remember my years in Parliament, the fierce battles we fought and some of the terrible things we said about one another across the political divide. Yet time did something that anger could not: many of us who once confronted each other bitterly came to know one another better, and friendships were formed across those old battle lines which endure to this day.
We argued just as fiercely over the restoration of traditional institutions generally and over the Ankole monarchy in particular. At the time, every disagreement seemed final, and every argument seemed to divide us permanently. But age teaches what passion sometimes conceals: today’s opponent may tomorrow become a friend, and today’s quarrel may one day look much smaller than it does in the heat of the moment.
I came, with time, to understand the wisdom of the old preacher who urged people to “cut yourselves with a sword that heals.” If we must disagree, let us disagree in a way that still leaves something to repair when the argument is over. Let us fight our battles, if we must, without destroying the possibility of friendship, family and reconciliation when the battle has passed.
Our ancestors sometimes settled succession questions with spears and armies, and history records the cost. We have law, institutions, elders, dialogue and the benefit of their mistakes, and surely we must be capable of doing better.
I am a lawyer and have spent much of my life in and around courts, so I say the following with the greatest respect for the judiciary. Not every problem that can be taken to court should be taken to court, because although a judge can interpret a document, determine a legal right and declare a winner, there is one order no court can issue: that a family shall henceforth love and trust one another.
A judgment can tell us who has the better legal argument, but it cannot always heal the wound that produced the case. A court can produce a winner and a loser; reconciliation has the possibility of preserving a family and, in this instance, perhaps a Kingdom.
I therefore respectfully appeal to Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, who has been announced as Oyo’s successor, to make reconciliation his first great act of leadership. Reach out to the Queen Mother, go to her, speak to her and listen to her, because whatever the arguments over succession, one fact requires neither affidavit nor evidence: she is a mother who has just buried her son.
If leadership is ultimately measured not simply by the office one occupies but by what one does with it, there can be no greater beginning than bringing a divided family together. Do not seek merely to inherit Oyo’s throne; seek also to inherit the gentleness by which so many Ugandans came to know him.
I equally appeal to the Queen Mother, Princess Ruth Komuntale, the Babiito, the elders and every branch of the Royal Family to give dialogue a genuine chance. Nobody needs to be humiliated for Tooro to be reunited, and nobody needs to be defeated for Tooro to win.
Put the traditions on the table, put the documents on the table, put the history on the table, and put the elders around that same table. Let Government facilitate where facilitation is needed, let lawyers advise where law requires interpretation, but ultimately let the family talk to itself, listen to itself and find a solution with which Tooro can live.
I also appeal to my friend Andrew Mwenda, an exceptionally gifted and fearless journalist who is also a son of Tooro. That gives him both an interest in what is happening and, I would suggest, a special responsibility in how this extraordinarily sensitive moment is handled.
Some very serious allegations have now entered the public domain, including allegations touching members of the Royal Family and the leadership of our country. Andrew, I say this to you as a friend: do not make reconciliation more difficult than it already is. The truth or falsity of those allegations is not for me to pronounce upon here, and my plea is simply that, in this moment of grief and uncertainty, nothing should be said or done which makes it harder for the Royal Family and the people of Tooro to find their way back to one another.
There are moments when courage consists in speaking, and there are moments when wisdom consists in recognising that enough has been said for now.
X will move on to another controversy, another argument and another target, but when the phones are put down, and the cameras have moved away, the Batooro will still have to live with one another.
That, ultimately, is what matters. When this dispute is over, the Batooro will still speak the same beautiful language, belong to the same clans, marry one another, celebrate together, mourn together and bury one another, and their children will inherit whatever this generation leaves behind.
Let those children inherit a Kingdom, not a quarrel. The throne is important, but Tooro is greater than its throne, and no King wins if his Kingdom loses, no Queen Mother wins if her family is broken, and no faction truly wins if its victory leaves bitterness that lasts for generations.
Government, too, carries a responsibility at this moment. I appeal to President Kaguta Museveni and Government to continue facilitating dialogue with sensitivity, impartiality and respect for Tooro’s traditions, because involvement should mean helping the Batooro find peace, not choosing for them the answer they must reach. Current efforts at mediation should therefore continue until every reasonable avenue for an agreed settlement has been exhausted.
I appeal to the elders to rise above factions and to the Royal Family to remember blood before bitterness. I appeal to Prince Edward to make reconciliation the foundation of whatever comes next, to the Queen Mother to make room for dialogue, and to Andrew and all of us commenting publicly to lower the temperature sufficiently for those directly concerned to hear one another.
King Oyo was a gentle King, and there would be something terribly sad about honouring a gentle King with a bitter succession. Let his final gift to Tooro be the peace that his people choose because they loved him, and let historians one day record that when grief and disagreement threatened to divide them in 2026, the Batooro remembered who they were and chose wisdom over anger.
History is watching, Uganda is watching, and, most importantly, our children are watching what we do with this moment. Beyond all of us stand our ancestors, from whom these institutions came and to whom, one day, every King, every elder and every citizen must return, so let wisdom prevail, let dignity prevail and, above all, let family prevail.
Hon. Dr Elly Karuhanga Ateenyi is the Founding and Senior Partner of Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA), former Chairman of the Uganda Chamber of Mines & Petroleum, and a leading figure in Uganda’s legal, corporate, and energy sectors.