King Oyo is buried at Karambi as Tooro argues over the next throne

Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV was buried on 12 September at the Karambi Royal Tombs outside Fort Portal. He was 34. He had ruled the Tooro kingdom in western Uganda since 1995, when he was three. Guinness listed him as the world's youngest reigning monarch. He died last month in the United States, where he was being treated for cancer. The burial fell 31 years to the day after his accession.

Thousands lined the streets as the coffin left the palace at about 9:06 a.m., more than an hour behind the published plan. Royal guards gave a final honour at Karuzika. After a requiem at St John's Cathedral the coffin travelled in a 2023 Mercedes-Benz GLE 400 prepared in South Africa for VVIP funerals. Mourners ran beside the car. At Karambi there was a seven-gun salute. The interment itself was in the evening, later than Tooro custom prefers.

Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, 56, a news presenter and editor at the state broadcaster UBC, cast nine coffee berries into the grave. In Tooro rite that act closes one reign and opens the next. A committee of the royal clan had named Kijanangoma, a cousin of the dead king, as successor on Wednesday. Oyo's family rejected the choice. The dispute was public before the funeral and did not end at the tomb.

Tooro is one of Uganda's restored cultural kingdoms. Milton Obote's government abolished the monarchies in 1967. President Yoweri Museveni allowed them back in the 1990s as cultural institutions without political power. The Omukama still inherits land and receives payments from the central government. That estate is one reason succession fights in these kingdoms rarely stay ceremonial.

Oyo took full control of the kingdom at 18, in 2010. For most of his life the crown was something other people held for him. The toddler-in-robes photographs from 1995 went around the world. The adult king had a quieter record: school, public duties, and an effort to keep Tooro visible beyond western Uganda. Cancer cut that record short.

Kijanangoma kept a low profile during the week of argument. People who know him describe a modest manner. That is not a legal title. Clan procedure and family objection now sit on the same grave. Uganda's central government tends to recognise whoever the official cultural machinery names, provided the choice does not become a security problem. A split between the clan committee and the household can become exactly that if it runs for months.

The coffee berries are in the earth. The new name has been spoken at the tomb. The family that buried a son and cousin has not accepted the speaker. That is the state of Tooro on the night of 12 September: a funeral completed, a throne claimed, and a kingdom that has not agreed on the man who just completed the rite.