Tooro’s succession battle has erupted before the Kingdom has even buried its fallen King, forcing Prime Minister Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki to plead with rival camps to put down their swords and let Omukama Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV rest in peace.
Rwomiire says Tooro is now facing sharply conflicting claims over who should inherit the Crown.
According to the prime minister, one side has already announced a new King, while another is pointing to a Will allegedly left by Oyo in which the late monarch expressed his wishes regarding succession.
But the Tooro Prime Minister says the Crown should not be fought over while the King’s body is still awaiting burial.
“Let us first bury our King,” Rwomiire said in a strongly worded appeal for peace and unity.
He warned that nothing was so urgent that Tooro should sacrifice the dignity of Oyo’s final journey, the grief of the Royal Family and the unity of the Kingdom in a succession contest.
According to Rwomiire, the succession question will have its time.
The Will can be examined, competing claims can be heard, Tooro customs and the law can be considered, and the appropriate cultural and institutional bodies can determine what happens next.
But he says that process should not be decided through competing announcements, confrontation or attempts by either side to create facts on the ground.
Rwomiire has also turned to the Government of Uganda, asking it to help keep peace and order during the tense period.
However, he was quick to draw a line between maintaining peace and choosing Tooro’s next King.
“This is not a request for Government to choose a King for Tooro,” he said.
Instead, he wants government to help create a peaceful environment in which Tooro’s cultural and legal institutions can resolve the dispute without intimidation or disorder.
He also called on elders and cultural leaders to step in and help cool tensions.
“Tooro is bigger than any one of us,” Rwomiire said, warning that the Crown is too important to become “the prize in a contest” staged in the middle of the Kingdom’s mourning.
The Prime Minister’s intervention adds another dramatic turn to the unfolding succession controversy, which has already exposed deep divisions over who has the authority to determine Oyo’s successor.
For now, Rwomiire’s message is simple: bury the King first, settle the Crown later.
He says history will remember not only who eventually takes the Tooro throne, but how the Kingdom behaved while mourning the young monarch.
