There is something admirable about being able to stand on your own.
Pay your bills. Solve your problems. Regulate your emotions. Make decisions without constantly needing reassurance.
Independence is freedom until it becomes an inability to need anyone.
“I will handle it,” “I do not want to bother anybody,” and “I would rather do it myself.”
Sometimes, these are signs of capability. Sometimes, they are evidence that, somewhere along the way, depending on other people began to feel frightening.
Perhaps someone disappointed you when you needed them most. Maybe asking for help once came with humiliation. So, you made yourself a promise: never again.
Then you became incredibly good at carrying things. Too good. Because eventually, people stop offering to help the person who always says they do not need it.
The tragedy is that extreme independence can produce exactly the loneliness it was designed to protect us from.
Healthy relationships involve dependence. Not helplessness, but dependence. Trusting that another person can carry something today because you will carry something tomorrow. Being loved means occasionally giving somebody the opportunity to be useful to you.
That requires vulnerability.
The strongest person in the room does not always have to lift the heaviest thing.
Perhaps real independence is not about saying, “I do not need anyone.”
Instead, it is knowing that you could survive alone without making loneliness your definition of strength.
Standing on your own two feet brings freedom.
Another kind of freedom comes from knowing that you do not always have to.
Makerere University’s Students’ Guild has formally petitioned the Dean of Students over a fresh round of food price increases at the Lumumba and Africa Hall dining facilities, warning that a “basic” student meal now costs as much as UGX 5,000.
In a letter dated 5th August 2026 and addressed to the Dean of Students, Dr. Winifred, Ag. Guild President Mubiru John Bosco says his office has been flooded with complaints from students over an abrupt increase of roughly UGX 1,000 slapped onto “virtually every meal” served at the two halls at the start of this semester.
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“What has traditionally been regarded as a basic student meal now costs approximately UGX 5,000, placing an additional financial burden on students who are already grappling with tuition, accommodation, academic materials, transport, and other living expenses,” the letter reads.
The Guild argues the increment couldn’t have come at a worse time — or hit a wider net of students. Lumumba Hall in particular has become one of the University’s main feeding points this semester, not just for its own residents but for students from Complex Hall (currently housed at Lumumba during renovations), Mary Stuart Hall, and students from CEES and CHUSS, among other colleges, who rely on the facility for lunch and supper.
With few affordable alternatives on campus besides “small kiosks outside the University” — which the Guild says are either too far or too small to absorb the demand — many students are left with nowhere else to turn. Bosco’s letter also does the math on the semester-long toll: at roughly seventeen weeks a semester, an extra UGX 1,000 per meal adds up fast for students eating two or more meals a day on campus, turning what looks like a small hike into what the Guild calls “a genuine threat to their welfare, nutrition, academic concentration and overall well-being.”
The letter also questions the business logic behind the hikes, noting that hall dining vendors operate with a guaranteed, captive student market that should ordinarily help keep prices stable through economies of scale — not push them up repeatedly with, as the Guild puts it, “no formal explanation or stakeholder engagement.”
While acknowledging that operating costs can genuinely fluctuate, the Guild is asking the Dean of Students’ office to:
Investigate what led to the current price increase at Lumumba Hall.
Engage the dining facility’s management for a clear justification of the hike, especially against food quality.
Assess whether the new prices are fair, reasonable and in line with the University’s commitment to student welfare.
Convene a meeting between the Dean of Students’ office, the Guild and dining facility management to find practical ways of keeping meals affordable.
Set up a consultative framework so future price changes are discussed with students before they’re implemented — not after.
Driving the point home, the letter tells Dr. Winifred plainly: “A hungry student cannot reasonably be expected to perform optimally in lectures, laboratories, discussions, or examinations. Preserving affordable access to meals is therefore an investment in both the welfare and academic excellence of Makerere University students.”
The letter, copied to the Chief Executive Officer of Mak Holdings, was received and stamped by the Dean of Students’ office on 6th August 2026 and by Mak Holdings on 5th August 2026. The Guild says it is “hopeful” the administration will treat the matter “with the urgency it deserves.”
The Prime Minister, Rt Hon. Robinah Nabbanja has revealed that conflicting lists of beneficiaries have delayed the compensation of traders whose businesses were destroyed following the flooding of the Nakivubo channels.
Speaking during the Prime Minister’s time on Thursday, 27 August 2026, Nabbanja said her office convened several meetings with traders and other stakeholders to establish credible lists of beneficiaries. “We constituted a team comprising of Uganda Revenue Authority [URA], Kampala Capital City Authority [KCCA] and Kampala City Traders Association [KACITA]. This team agreed to come up with the list of beneficiaries, but each had their own list,” said Nabbanja.
She said URA submitted a list of 360 beneficiaries with KCCA and KACITA presenting 460 and 480 traders respectively.
According to the Prime Minister, the failure to harmonise these lists prevented government from releasing the compensation before the end of the 2025/2026 financial year. “We wanted to start paying them in May but the traders petitioned the President again. As a result, the financial year in which they were to be paid ended and money was not sent to the Office of the Prime Minister because it lacked a list of beneficiaries,” Nabbanja said.
She told the House that the verification undertaken by the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) had identified 737 beneficiaries and that the compensation process now awaits guidance from President Yoweri Museveni following the traders’ petition.
Budadiri County East MP, Hon. Julius Nakiyi had who expressed concerns about the prolonged delay in compensating the affected traders.
Nakiyi said traders who had approached him wanted clarification on the whereabouts of the compensation package of Shs20 billion pledged by the President and when it would be released.
The compensation relates to losses suffered during the severe flooding of October 2025 when water from the Nakivubo drainage channel flooded arcades and commercial buildings in downtown Kampala.
Speaker Jacob Marksons Oboth expressed concern that compensation exercises were repeatedly undermined by inflated or manipulated beneficiary lists.
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Bbaale County Member of Parliament, Hon. Charles Tebandeke has questioned the cutting of hair of prisoners asking whether the practice does not infringe on the religious freedoms and constitutional rights of inmates of some faiths.
Tebandeke raised the matter on Thursday, 27 August 2026 at a sitting chaired by Speaker Jacob Marksons Oboth. Tebandeke said the law provides exemptions for inmates whose religious beliefs prohibit hair cutting.
He cited provisions under the Prisons Regulations which state that the hair of a female prisoner should not be cut unless recommended by a medical officer. He added that the hair of a prisoner whose religion prohibits cutting it should not be cut without a written order from the officer in charge, issued on grounds of necessity and certified by a medical officer.
Tebandeke argued that the matter went beyond prison regulations and touched on fundamental constitutional protections. “Article 34 of the Constitution provides for respect to humanity, dignity, human treatment, protection from torture, cruelty, degradation, among others, and these are non-negotiable rights according to Article 44,” Tebandeke said.
He called on the line minister to follow up the matter with the Uganda Prisons Service and ensure that prison authorities comply with the law and regulations governing the cutting of prisoners’ hair, particularly where exemptions are provided.
The MP also asked the Committee on Human Rights to investigate the extent of the practice across prisons and establish whether the rights of prisoners were being protected.
The Minister for Internal Affairs, Hon. Ephraim Kamuntu said they will engage the prison authorities.
However, Deputy Attorney General, Hon. Jackson Kafuuzi said there is no immediate need for a parliamentary investigation into the matter.
He said that if the practice has been taking place, prison authorities may have been acting under the existing regulations which instead can be reviewed.
“We will sit with the Law Reform Commission and consider your concern and if it requires an amendment, we will advise accordingly and move on,” Kafuuzi said.
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There are deaths that mark the quiet conclusion of a mortal life, and there are departures that merely alter the celestial address of an enduring legend. The transition of Dolly Rebecca Parton belongs undeniably to the latter realm. On 25 August 2026, at the age of 80, the world bid farewell to one of the most recognizable, consequential, and transcendent cultural forces ever to grace the global stage. Parton passed away peacefully in Nashville following a valiant battle with cancer, enveloped in the quiet devotion of her loved ones. Yet, to state merely that Dolly Parton has died is to commit a grave linguistic understatement; it is factually precise, yet culturally and spiritually inadequate. Dolly was never just an individual occupying a mortal frame for eight decades; she became a universal voice, an architect of moral dignity, a towering economic powerhouse, an incorruptible philanthropist, and a shared sanctuary of emotional citizenship for millions across continents who had never set foot upon the mist-shrouded ridges of her native Tennessee.
Her homegoing neither invites an ordinary obituary nor tolerates a predictable recital of accolades and industry trophies. It demands a far deeper, reverent accounting of what one extraordinary soul accomplished with singular genius, unflinching ambition, and an inexhaustible, almost divine capacity to elevate others. Born on 19 January 1946 in Locust Ridge, Sevier County, Tennessee, as the fourth of twelve children in a rustic one-room cabin, Dolly understood the biting reality of material deprivation intimately. Yet her childhood was never culturally or spiritually impoverished. The rich cadence of mountain balladry, unyielding Christian faith, family solidarity, and the profound art of Appalachian oral storytelling formed the bedrock of her consciousness. Her father, Robert Lee Parton, an industrious sharecropper and construction worker, could neither read nor write, a painful vulnerability that would later ignite one of the most transformative global literacy crusades in human history. Singing before rural congregations as a child, stepping onto the hallowed stage of the Grand Ole Opry at the tender age of thirteen, and boarding a Nashville-bound bus the day after graduating high school in 1964, she set in motion a monumental journey that would forever redefine the boundaries of modern music and human generosity.
To view Dolly Parton’s catalog merely as a procession of commercial triumphs is to overlook its profound intellectual, emotional, and moral architecture. She was a master dramatist who understood instinctively that the human spirit remembers narrative long after it forgets statistics, encoding three-minute melodies with timeless truths about vulnerability, resilience, and transcendent love. In Coat of Many Colors, her undisputed masterpiece and the sacred crown jewel of her repertoire, Dolly delivered an immortal indictment of shallow materialism and class judgment. By chronicling how her mother stitched discarded scraps of cloth into a garment wrapped in maternal devotion, the song establishes that a person’s intrinsic worth is measured by love rather than bank accounts, proving that material poverty need never diminish the sovereignty of human dignity, pride, or hope. In Jolene, she overturned the tired clichés of romantic rivalry by demonstrating that true strength speaks through naked vulnerability, empathy, and the quiet courage to expose one’s deepest fears without resorting to cruelty. In I Will Always Love You, an ethereal composition that became a worldwide hymn of bittersweet parting, she elevated farewell into an act of supreme grace, teaching that the highest form of love often requires the selfless courage to release another person so they may flourish. With 9 to 5, she harnessed buoyant melody, typewriter rhythms, and razor-sharp satire to champion working-class integrity, giving millions of working women an empowering anthem that laid bare corporate exploitation and systemic inequality with infectious charm. Through Light of a Clear Blue Morning, she offered a luminous anthem of spiritual endurance, reminding weary hearts that despair is never the final destination and that dawn inevitably breaks over the longest night. And in her unforgettable 1983 collaboration with Kenny Rogers on Islands in the Stream, penned by the Bee Gees, she demonstrated the pure magic of artistic communion, proving that when two masters meet in absolute trust and vocal generosity, they can generate an infectious, uncontainable joy that transcends genres and endures across generations.
Beyond her musical genius, the defining metric of Dolly Parton’s earthly pilgrimage is not found in her 100 million records sold, her 3,000 copyrighted compositions, or her eleven Grammy Awards; it is etched indelibly into the astonishing figure of more than 325 million books delivered directly into the hands of children across five nations through the Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library. Inspired by her father’s illiteracy, this quiet crusade stripped philanthropy of all corporate vanity and performative paternalism, recognizing that the greatest intervention a society can offer is the simple, radical act of placing a book before a child to unlock their boundless potential. This ethos of uncalculating benevolence guided her entire life, whether she was quietly underwriting a million-dollar grant to Vanderbilt University that accelerated the development of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, distributing direct cash assistance to hundreds of mountain families who lost their homes in the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires through the My People Fund, or providing full college tuition for employees of her thriving theme park enterprises. Dolly operated with a profound understanding that wealth and fame acquire true legitimacy only when they are circulated back into the world as instruments of human emancipation and communal healing.
Dolly Parton mastered the rare art of sovereign self-definition, retaining absolute authorship over her image and narrative in an industry that constantly attempted to commodify and diminish her. Cloaked in rhinestones, towering wigs, and razor-sharp self-deprecating wit, she used spectacle not to deceive, but to disarm prejudice, proudly carrying her Appalachian roots onto Hollywood movie sets, Broadway stages, and global arenas without ever diluting her authentic essence or apologizing for her ambition. As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, to remain entirely oneself in a world relentlessly attempting to reshape you is the supreme achievement, and Dolly lived that philosophy with triumphant brilliance. Her physical voice has grown still, yet the evidence of her life remains vibrant and unshakeable: in the hospitals where scientific cures were forged, in the mountain valleys she economically revitalized, in the melodies that will comfort generations yet unborn, and in the hands of every little child who opens a free book and dares to imagine a world far wider than their circumstance. May her gentle soul repose in eternal peace, for while the mountain girl has journeyed home to the highlands of eternity, the sacred tapestry of her song will illuminate the human spirit forever.
The writer is a lawyer, researcher and governance analyst (LLM – Natural Resources Law – Kampala International University)
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Chicken Chicken‘s proposal to Menisha was supposed to be a celebration of love.
And it was.
But the internet, as usual, found something else to talk about.
Among the many videos that emerged from the August 25 proposal was one showing social media personality Sheila Price standing beside Chicken Chicken and appearing to sing.
Nobody seemed particularly interested in the singing.
Instead, social media users locked onto Sheila’s feet, turning the video into a source of jokes, memes and reactions as it continued to make the rounds.
There is something almost haunting about the calendar surrounding the Tooro throne. On August 26, 1995, Tooro lost a King.
On August 27, 2026, it lost his son. Thirty-one years after the death of Omukama Patrick David Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III, his only son, King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, also died, just one day after the anniversary of his father’s death.
Oyo was only three years old when his father’s death suddenly pushed him into a life most children could never imagine.
He became King. He became the face of Tooro. And eventually, he became one of the most recognisable traditional leaders in Uganda.
Now he is gone. The announcement came shortly after 10 p.m. on Thursday. Tooro Kingdom Prime Minister Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki delivered the news that many had been dreading.
“It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that I announce the passing of His Majesty the Omukama of Tooro, King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, at approximately 10:00 p.m. this evening.”
Then came the words that captured the mood of an entire kingdom: “Omukama Atulize. Enkuba Etutire.” Let the King rest. The rain has stopped.
The kingdom had earlier told the public that the King was critically ill and asked people to pray. Then, within hours, the worst happened. King Oyo was dead at 34.
And with him ended a royal journey that began when he was barely old enough to understand what a kingdom was.
Imagine being three years old and being told that you are no longer simply a child. You are the King.That was Oyo’s reality.
Born on April 16, 1992, to King Patrick David Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III and Queen Mother Best Kemigisa, Oyo became heir to one of Uganda’s historic kingdoms.
Then tragedy struck. His father died on August 26, 1995, aged 49.The little prince inherited the crown.
On September 12 that year, he was enthroned as Omukama of Tooro. According to the Tooro Kingdom’s official biography, he became the kingdom’s 13th ruler and entered the record books as the world’s youngest reigning monarch.
And Oyo grew up with the crown following him everywhere.
Being King did not exempt Oyo from homework. He still had to learn. He still had to sit in classrooms. He still had to swim, listen to music, study mathematics and enjoy art.
He attended preschool in London before returning to Uganda, where he studied at Aga Khan Primary School in Kampala.
He later attended Kampala International School Uganda. There, behind the royal title, he was still a schoolboy who enjoyed art, music, mathematics and swimming.
But there was one major difference between Oyo and the other children. Oyo could not run a kingdom at three. So others had to do it while he grew. Queen Mother Best Kemigisa was central to his upbringing.
Princess Elizabeth Bagaaya, Prince James Mugenyi, the Kabaka of Buganda Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II and President Yoweri Museveni were also among those who played roles in guiding the young monarch during his childhood.
For years, Oyo was effectively growing into the job. Then came 2010. The boy King had become a young man. On April 17, shortly after his 18th birthday, he formally assumed greater responsibility for the monarchy.
The child everyone had watched for years was now expected to lead. And that was when the Oyo story changed. Oyo did not stop at royal protocol. He went to university. He travelled to England and studied Business Management at the University of Winchester. In October 2013, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree.
The boy whose photographs had once appeared around the world because he was a child on a throne had become a university graduate preparing to manage a kingdom in a completely different era.
If there was one cause that repeatedly put Oyo in the public spotlight as an adult, it was the fight against HIV/AIDS. In 2014, young people under the African Young Positives Network selected him as an ambassador for a campaign aimed at ending AIDS in Africa by 2030.
He was later appointed to a UNAIDS ambassadorial role focused on HIV/AIDS among young people. He used the influence of the crown to speak to young people about testing, prevention and treatment. The message was simple: being a King was not only about sitting in a palace.
Oyo’s Tooro was not just Karuziika Palace. The kingdom’s nine counties Burahya, Fort Portal, Kyaka, Ntoroko, Bunyangabu, Kitagwenda, Kibaale, Mwenge South and Mwenge North formed the communities over which the cultural institution sought to maintain its identity and unity.
In his later years, Oyo travelled into the counties to meet his subjects. In 2025, he began a royal tour that took him across the nine counties. He listened to local concerns. He promoted youth programmes. He spoke about agriculture. He urged young people to embrace productive work.
And he told politicians to avoid politics that divided people along tribal or sectarian lines. The King wanted the crown to be more than a symbol. He wanted it connected to the lives of ordinary people.
Oyo understood the power of young people because he had been one of Uganda’s most famous young people himself.
Through youth programmes, he encouraged young people to embrace farming, entrepreneurship and productive economic activities.
The Tooro Masaza Cup was used not only to promote football but also as a platform for HIV/AIDS awareness and community mobilisation. For a King who inherited his throne before he could understand it, the focus increasingly became how that throne could help shape the future.
The Rwenzori Mountains became another part of Oyo’s public legacy. Environmental protection, tourism and climate awareness were among the issues associated with his later activities. A royal expedition into the Rwenzori was used to draw attention to environmental conservation and the tourism potential of Tooro and the wider region.
The King who had once attracted tourists because of his unusual childhood was now trying to attract attention to the land and people he represented.
Oyo’s story cannot be separated from the men who wore the crown before him. His father was Patrick David Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III, born September 9, 1945, and who died August 26, 1995.
Before Olimi III was Rukidi III, born March 6, 1904, and who died December 21, 1965.
Before him was Daudi Kasagama Kyebambe III, born around 1860 and who died on December 31, 1928.
Then came earlier rulers including Katera, who ruled during 1876–1877, and Kakende Nyamuyonjo, who ruled during periods in the 1870s and 1880s.
Oyo’s name, Rukidi IV, itself carried the memory of his grandfather, Rukidi III.
The crown he wore was therefore never simply his. It carried the memory of those who had worn it before him.
This is perhaps the hardest part of the story. Oyo was only 34. For nearly 31 years, Tooro had known him as its King.
In announcing Oyo’s death, Prime Minister Rwomiire said the late King had left behind a Prince who would be heir to the crown.
But the identity of the Prince has not yet been officially revealed. The Prime Minister said the announcement would come at the appropriate time, in accordance with Tooro customs and traditions.
The Crown, he assured the people, will continue. So while Tooro mourns one King, another royal chapter is waiting to begin.
The tributes have already started. The Kyabazinga of Busoga, William Wilberforce Gabula Nadiope IV, described Oyo as a visionary and humble cultural leader who preserved tradition while inspiring a new generation.
The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Stephen Samuel Kaziimba Mugalu, conveyed condolences to the Royal Family, Rwenzori Diocese and the people of Tooro.
From across the border, the Mwami of Bukumu Kingdom in eastern DR Congo, Butsitsi Kahembe IV Isaac, mourned Oyo as his “brother and friend.”
The tributes reveal just how far Oyo’s influence travelled. He was a Tooro King. But he had also become a national figure.
There will be funeral rites. There will be mourning. There will be royal traditions.There will be the unveiling of an heir.
There will eventually be another King. But none of that changes what happened on the night of August 27. A kingdom lost the man who had been its face for almost three decades.
Bajjo has entered the Crysto Panda and Gloria Bugie fallout with a verdict of his own, and Gloria’s singing ability is not getting his vote.
Speaking on Sanyuka Uncut, the motor-mouthed events promoter agreed with one of Panda’s most repeated criticisms of Gloria: that singing is simply not her strongest suit.
Gloria Bugie does not know how to sing, but she has a body. Bugie’s body is natural and not the product of a BBL.
While Bajjo backed Panda on the music question, he drew the line at claims that Gloria’s figure is artificial.
In his view, Panda may have got some things wrong, but his assessment of Gloria’s singing was not one of them.
Panda might have been wrong about other things, but he was not wrong about Gloria Bugie not knowing how to sing.
Bajjo also gave Panda credit for being more than just a singer, describing him as versatile enough to teach Gloria a thing or two about music.
Panda can teach Gloria Bugie how to sing because he is a producer and a presenter. Panda is multi-talented, and when it comes to reasoning, Panda reasons.
The conversation then returned to the part of the feud that has drawn the strongest reaction.
What began as a public clash between two entertainers turned deeply personal after Gloria’s now-deleted post referenced Panda’s late child and other painful parts of his life.
That, according to Bajjo, is where the rules of a public war of words should apply.
I heard Gloria Bugie taunting Panda about his child who died. If you are in a war of words, rule number one is: never make it personal. The child she is talking about has nothing to do with her fallout with Panda.
For Bajjo, Panda and Gloria are free to trade insults and attack each other over their differences, but the people and experiences outside that dispute should not become ammunition.
The public fallout between singers Jowy Landa and Black Shuga has dragged on for months, and Black Shuga has now shared her view of the trouble between them.
Appearing on Sanyuka Uncut, Shuga referred to Jowy as “the young girl,” before explaining that she was not talking about age.
The young girl is just disorganised. When I call her young, I am not saying that I am older than her because she is actually older than me. But someone can be older in age and still be young mentally.
For Shuga, age and maturity are clearly two different things.
The conversation also touched on where the trouble between the two entertainers stems from, and her answer was just as direct.
Just someone being ignorant. Someone being disorganised. Someone being too struggling.
The dispute between Jowy and Shuga has played out publicly for months, with financial disagreements, personal issues involving family and public call-outs all becoming part of the drama.
Still, when asked whether such feuds are productive, Black Shuga said they are not.
Her answer may have been brief, but it adds another twist to a public feud that has continued for months, even as one of the people at the centre of it admits that such battles achieve little.
Swangz Avenue singer Elijah Kitaka has explained why it is difficult for creatives to plan for the general election period in the same way they prepare for the festive season.
According to Kitaka, the unpredictable nature of election season makes it difficult for artists and other creatives to determine how best to plan their projects, as many people shift their attention toward the elections, which affect everyone in the country.
It’s unpredictable. You cannot say, ‘How can I plan for election time?’ It’s not possible. Everything has to pause because the elections concern us and everyone in the country. That’s why everything gets to pause for it to work.
Kitaka also pointed out that releasing new music before or during the election period may not receive the attention it deserves because the public is more focused on political developments and deciding who they will vote for.
The truth is, even when you say you drop an EP, people won’t focus on it. They will be thinking about who they’re going to vote for in the elections. Even when you try to push your music during that time, I’d be not understanding your intentions at that time.
The singer, however, clarified that creatives do not necessarily allow elections to affect their careers deliberately.
Rather, it is the uncertainty surrounding the period and when things will eventually return to normal that makes planning difficult.
I wouldn’t say we let it affect us. It is the unpredictability around it. When does it settle? People don’t know that. So we remain in a certain unstable way, and some people still take their time until maybe when they see specific things happening. So, in a way, you’re caught off guard.
