Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a 56-year-old journalist and long-serving anchor and editor at Uganda's state broadcaster, has been crowned Omukama (king) of the Tooro Kingdom in western Uganda. He takes the title Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma Nyabongo I and becomes the kingdom's 14th monarch, according to the BBC. His coronation follows the death of King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, who died of cancer last month in the United States at the age of 34.
The ceremonies began at midnight and lasted about 24 hours. Kijanangoma walked roughly 4 kilometres to the royal palace, and a mock battle was staged to signify that kingship does not come easily. He then symbolically took possession of the palace in Fort Portal, the kingdom's main town in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Traditional rites included the slaughter of a bull and the use of a rooster's blood. President Yoweri Museveni attended.
The succession was contested. Oyo had become king in 1995 aged three, after his father's death, and was recognised in 2025 by Guinness World Records as the youngest reigning monarch. After his death, a committee of 21 members of the royal Babiito clan chose Kijanangoma, a cousin of Oyo and, like him, a grandson of King George David Matthew Kamurasi Rukidi III, who reigned from 1928 to 1965. The kingdom's information minister said the crown had moved to a different line within the ruling clan.
Oyo's mother, Queen Best Kemigisa, objected. She said her son's will named his young son as heir and described the announcement of a second king, with celebrations held metres from where her son's body lay, as extraordinarily painful. The committee said it had not recognised the child, who has never been shown publicly and who, according to the queen, is in Texas. Oyo was never publicly married. The queen said the boy did not travel to Uganda because of a tense and polarised dispute. The government backed the clan's choice, with the Attorney General saying no formal complaint had been lodged. Museveni's son, army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba, also voiced public support.
Kijanangoma graduated in mass communication from Makerere University in 1999 and worked as a broadcaster for more than two decades, including in Rwanda and at the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation. He has promised an open palace, unity and development, and says he will use his contacts to benefit his people.
The episode matters because Uganda's traditional kingdoms, abolished in 1967 and restored by Museveni's government in the early 1990s, hold no formal political power but command significant cultural influence and loyalty. Tooro is one of four main kingdoms, the largest being Buganda around the capital Kampala. Critics have seen the restoration as a way of fostering political loyalty, which gives a disputed succession wider significance.