Tooro names a state-TV journalist as king after the death of the boy king

A news editor at Uganda's state broadcaster was named king of Tooro on Wednesday evening. Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a cousin of the late Omukama Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, was chosen by a 21-member committee of the Babiito royal clan. Nineteen members signed the resolution. Monsignor Isaiah Mayombo, vicar general of the Fort Portal diocese, read the result at Karuziika Palace.

King Oyo died on 27 August in the United States at the age of 34, of cancer. He was three years old in 1995 when he succeeded his father, Patrick Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III, and became known worldwide as the "boy king." Nelson Mandela and other African leaders sent messages at that coronation. Oyo took full duties at 18, in 2010, in Fort Portal. He never married. President Yoweri Museveni has said Oyo left a young son born outside marriage. The clan committee passed over that child and chose an adult cousin instead.

Kijanangoma is the son of the late Prince Christopher Paul Kijanangoma and a grandson of Omukama Sir George David Rukidi Kamurasi III. He works as an anchor and editor at Uganda Broadcasting Corporation. Associates describe him as a working journalist rather than a court figure. The committee said it had run consultations and due diligence before the vote. Enthronement is to follow Tooro custom. Oyo's funeral is set for Saturday near the Congo border, with tens of thousands of mourners expected.

Tooro is one of five traditional kingdoms recognised by the Ugandan state. The others are Buganda, Bunyoro, Busoga and a restored Rwenzururu. None of them hold sovereignty. They run cultural institutions, land questions inside customary law, and public ceremony. The 1967 constitution abolished the kingdoms. Yoweri Museveni restored them in the 1990s as cultural bodies. That legal frame is why a clan committee, not a national election or a presidential decree, picks the next Omukama.

The choice of an adult journalist over a small child is the political content of Wednesday's announcement. Oyo's own reign began with a regency. Traditionalists who remember that period, and Baganda and Batooro who have watched child monarchs struggle with court factions, had a reason to want a grown successor. Museveni's public remark about an heir born out of wedlock set up a collision the committee declined to have. A child king would have meant another long regency and another argument about who speaks for the palace.

Tooro sits in western Uganda, around Fort Portal, with the Rwenzori mountains on one side and the Congolese frontier on the other. The kingdom's prestige is cultural and local. It does not command an army. It does command attention when a king dies young. Oyo had been on the throne for 31 years. Most Batooro under 35 have known only his name on the royal drum. Replacing him with a cousin who reads the news on UBC is a bet that familiarity and lineage can substitute for the affection built around a child who grew up on camera.

Kijanangoma will be judged first on the funeral and the coronation timetable. Saturday's burial is the larger public event. The new Omukama is expected to take up cultural leadership after that. Court offices, land trustees and the relationship with State House will be tested in the months after the ceremonies, not during them. Uganda's presidents have always preferred kings who stay inside the cultural brief. A journalist-king who already works for a state broadcaster starts that test with a known employer and a known voice.

There is a second, quieter stake. Succession fights in Ugandan kingdoms have previously pulled in police, rival princes and local members of parliament. The 19-2 committee vote is meant to close that door before it opens. Whether the door stays closed depends on how the alleged young son is treated, and on whether other Babiito princes accept a cousin who spent his working life in a newsroom rather than at court.

For now the record is short and clear. The boy king is dead. The clan named a broadcaster. Saturday will bury one reign. The next one starts when Kijanangoma sits where a three-year-old sat in 1995.