It is not easy working for Government of Uganda these days.
From elected officials to Presidential appointees, you might be ordered to apologise anytime for anything - whether you know your fault or not!
Being an in-law to the President or having been a loyal General to the Commander-in-Chief cannot spare you either!
Lest I forget, even other sovereign nations with economies that are over 8 times bigger than ours are not spared either.
We are still in the phase of audacity in the asking of apologies, but we will soon have audacity in the apologies themselves and it is at that turn that we shall petition Parliament to rename the Uganda Management Institute as the Chris Baryomunsi Institute of Management Studies.
With each passing day, people are realising that there is/was wisdom in how Chris Baryomunsi handled the situation. You will all give that Mukiga man his flowers in the fullness of time because he now goes about his work without any fear of somebody asking him for apologies that have got no legs, ears nor eyes!
There is a Ganda saying that the owner of the shrine/temple is normally the one that desecrates it!
Happy Sunday!
Before you go to Church today and drop that 500k in the basket.
Wake up. Look outside your gate. That neighbor opposite you in the unfenced rentals her child has had flu for 3 days and looks malnourished. Have you checked on them?
That mudala lady selling food stuff near your apartment boost her small business with a ka 50k
That neighbor next door you've never greeted for 6 months have you ever asked How are you holding up?
That neighbor whose kids are still home because school fees isn't there you pass them every morning.
Share that loaf of bread first don't wait for it to go bad and trash. Check on that sick child first. Greet that stranger next door first.
Don't go to Church to impress God with money when you have failed your neighbor.
True Christianity is not in the offering, it's in loving your neighbor as you love yourself.
Be the Church before you go to Church.
Let's spread true love today, let's be the change we desire and that change starts with each one of us.
“Kemigisa had to find a house (palace) where to bring up this young family. She chose Kampala. She was never helped to raise money to pay rent, feed the king and his siblings, take care of their medical bills, and pay for their education. Museveni offered help but it was never sufficient. Most (if not all) Batooro ignored the plight of the young family.
In fact, it is Sudhir Ruparelia and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda (both of whom grew up in Toro) who offered a helping hand to educate the king and his sister. It is a mark of her excellent social networking skills that Kemigisa mobilised people like former Libyan ruler, Maummar Gadhafi, to support the kingdom. And even in this, many Batooro elites gossiped in criticism of her efforts. In fact after Katuramu, the kingdom would have collapsed had Kemigisa not stepped onto the plate.”
Andrew Mwenda 15 March 2015
Gratitude to HRH
The Queen Mother.
Thank you Andrew for appreciating this lady for her work towards the kingdom and her efforts.
I used to think that the patience and empathy of @KagutaMuseveni was a weakness and his main achilles heel so to speak. I have had a complete change of heard and mind. It may just about be his greatest strength a reason for which he has lasted here for as long as he has. The look of persons with very thin patience and no empathy at all is not good at all.
Find anything that can teach you patience, empathy and sympathy.
At what point do we draw the line on cultural practices? What exactly would have happened if the Queen Mother had been allowed to bury her son? We were told the King cannot be buried beyond 3:00 PM, but he was buried at 5:00 PM and nothing happened. Culture is not static, and it should not be; culture is dynamic.
Deputy Speaker Rt. Hon. @Thomas_Tayebwa made a very profound statement at the burial of Omukama Oyo. “We have lost a king whom we shall replace, we have lost a friend whom we shall replace, but Queen mother has lost a son whom she will never replace”.
This statement reminds us that while the Kingdom will get another king, The Queen Mother Best Kemigisa has lost her own child. She deserves to be respected as a mother and allowed to mourn her son in whichever way she chooses.
Let us give her grace, respect and privacy in this painful period.
The Rukirabasaija Omukama Kabamba Iguru names carry and significantly signify a concept.
A King is exaulted. Period. In many ways a Monarch lives above question and reproach.
He is The Rukirabasaija meaning other men must be very careful while approaching him on anything his life of document.
The moment you are seen and known to have participated is the laying up of the foundations of the sky, placing it up in its place it means you are into large matters not small things.
If you have such power in the eyes of your subjects then you are super human in nature and action.
Questioning the King is questioning the crown. If there is a line it is so thin it cannot be seen and known.
It is dangerously dangerous to allow anyone who is not a monarch to question a Rukirabasaija in any of his dealings with subjects be it women he chooses to marry and or have children with.
That is just the wish of the King and or decree!
Kings without question would determine who lives and who dies!
Do you want a crown that can be questioned? Will that still be a Rukirabasaija? Do you still want a Kabamba Iguru?
That decision is for the Batooro and the Babiito!
THERE IS A BIG PROBLEM IN YOUR STATEMENTS, THEY WILL TEAR THE KINGDOM. LET ME TELL YOU WHY;
Your statement is long, but its central weakness is remarkably simple: it assumes the very authority that the Queen Mother is challenging.
You tell us that over 100 Babiito met at Karuziika, selected 21 people, and that this became the “Royal Succession Committee.” But where, precisely, did those 100 Babiito derive the legal or customary authority to constitute a body whose decision would determine the next Omukama?
Calling it a “Royal Succession Committee” does not answer that question. A committee does not become legitimate merely because it gives itself a name, holds a meeting and votes.
If the Queen Mother’s objection is that this was a “self-appointed group,” the answer cannot simply be: more than 100 people attended. The real question is whether those people had the recognised mandate under Tooro custom to constitute the body that Mwenda now treats as the supreme electoral authority. That is the answer 'Best' is looking for.
There is another serious problem.
You say Oyo’s son was excluded because there was no photograph, there were questions about his mother, different names had been used, and some Babiito had never heard of him.
But since when does not having a photograph at a meeting become a customary test of dynastic legitimacy? As, you claim to be an 'old man of the clan', do you think the absence of the above, delegitimise the young boy (if any) of his royalty? Be fair Andrew!!!
If the existence of a possible heir was genuinely in dispute, the rational course would have been to verify the claim—identity, parentage, birth records, DNA where appropriate, testimony, and the applicable customary requirements. Instead, the committee allegedly moved from uncertainty to exclusion.
That is not the same thing as disproving the claim.
You also make a revealing rhetorical move by repeatedly calling the child “Oyo’s purported son.” That is a conclusion masquerading as neutral description. If paternity is disputed, then say it is disputed. Do not use the language of uncertainty to create the impression that the claim has already been discredited.
You say the Queen Mother was represented on the committee by her brother Patrick Kawamara. But if the Queen Mother herself is an institutionally significant actor in the succession of her deceased son, why should her participation be reduced to being represented by a relative on a committee whose mandate she disputes? Would you expect a sober mother like 'Best' to be in such a contested meeting with her son lying unburied??
Representation is not the same thing as consent. Nor does the fact that a person attends a meeting necessarily mean that they accept the legitimacy of the process taking place at that meeting.
The argument about the will is equally problematic. You say the will contains only a “hypothetical heir” and therefore does not resolve succession. Fine.
But if the will does not resolve succession, why is it being deployed as part of the argument against the Queen Mother’s position?
A will may answer questions concerning property and personal wishes. Succession to a traditional throne is a different question governed by the applicable constitutional, statutory and customary framework.
So the real issue is not whether Oyo’s will magically names a successor. The real issue is whether the succession process being undertaken is lawful, customary, legitimate and inclusive of the institutions entitled to participate in it.
And this is where your statement becomes politically interesting. You spend enormous energy explaining why Oyo’s possible son should not automatically inherit. But who is arguing that a son automatically inherits? That is a straw man!!!
The more difficult question is whether the existence of a son and the circumstances of his birth must first be conclusively established before the kingdom closes the succession question. Those are completely different propositions.
Your statement also says the kingdom was “time barred” and therefore moved to the next candidate after George Kamurasi allegedly asked for time to consult his wife and business partners. Time-barred by what rule? What customary provision imposes that deadline? Who set it? Why was the deadline necessary? And why should the urgency of filling the throne override unresolved questions concerning a possible direct descendant of the deceased Omukama? These are not minor procedural questions. They go to the legitimacy of the entire process.
But there is an even deeper issue that your statement does not confront. Why is there such extraordinary urgency to determine the next King?
If the real objective is simply to identify the most legitimate successor, there should be no fear of a transparent process that establishes the facts first. The controversy therefore appears to be about more than the identity of the next Omukama. It is about who will have influence over the next Omukama.
The Queen Mother is not merely another relative of the late King. She occupies a distinct cultural position and has been closely associated with the young King and the institution of the Tooro monarchy.
Therefore, a succession struggle in which the Queen Mother’s influence is diminished, her preferred position is challenged, and a new succession structure is rapidly constructed around her is inevitably going to raise questions about the political future of the institution itself.
This is why the debate should not be reduced to:
“Did Oyo introduce his son?”
“Was there a photograph?”
“What did the will say?”
“Did 100 Babiito meet?”
Those are pieces of the puzzle—not the puzzle itself.
The fundamental questions are:
Who has the authority to determine succession?
What customary rules confer that authority?
Was the Queen Mother’s institutional role properly recognised?
Why was the possible heir excluded rather than subjected to a transparent verification process?
What exactly made the succession process “time barred”?
And, ultimately:
Who benefits from determining the next Omukama through this particular process, at this particular moment, and with the Queen Mother’s influence reduced?
Until those questions are answered, your statement does not settle the succession dispute.
It merely gives us one side’s explanation of why it believes it should control the process.
And that is precisely the issue in dispute.
What the Babiito are doing springs from a place of vanity, not legitimacy. The global fascination with Tooro did not come from the institution itself, it came from a child / young innocent King with the name Oyo and yet a Mutooro not a Northerner. Without him, Tooro would still have a neglected palace with little national attention, and the passing of any other cultural leader (outside the Kabaka) would not command this level of national or international mourning.
Tooro’s elevated status exists because of two people:
➡️the Queen Mother, whose discipline (or lack of it) and strategy shaped the institution, and
➡️Her son, whose charisma, grooming, and presence made him a global brand.
People are not mourning “the King of Tooro.” They are mourning King Oyo Nyimba Iguru Rukidi IV: the individual who defined the identity of the Kingdom for an entire generation.
Look at Bunyoro: it has a King and a Prime Minister, yet national visibility is minimal. When did the public last see the King of Bunyoro? Or hear from him. In this era, Oyo was their King — not just by title, but by influence, image, and cultural resonance. He was a brand unto himself, and yes, his grooming and appearance mattered because they shaped how the world perceived Tooro.
Whatever one thinks of the Queen Mother, she raised him into the man and monarch he became. That alone demands respect. Without her and without him, Tooro would not occupy the place it does today. And if they continue with this Kijanangoma, they will go back to oblivion. They are better off installing a son of Oyo and continue milking the fascination. On the other hand they may never get it back because of how the whole transition has materialized.