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A fresh succession dispute has emerged in Tooro following the death of King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, with the Tooro Chief Prince and head of the Babiito royal clan, Charles Kamurasi Akiiki, rejecting claims that the late monarch left behind a son to inherit the throne.

Kamurasi, also known as the Omusuuga, said the Royal Family had never been informed of the existence of a child belonging to the late King.

“The King had no child. I don’t know about it because we have never been told that,” Kamurasi said.

His remarks directly contradict an earlier announcement by Tooro Kingdom Prime Minister Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki, who, while announcing King Oyo’s death on August 27, said the monarch had left behind a Prince who would succeed him.

Rwomiire said the identity of the heir would be revealed at an appropriate time in accordance with the customs and traditions of the Tooro Kingdom.

President Yoweri Museveni later appeared to confirm the existence of the heir, saying on August 29 that Queen Mother Best Kemigisa had informed him by telephone that King Oyo had left behind a young boy.

CHIEF PRINCE QUESTIONS HEIR CLAIM

However, Kamurasi has questioned both the source of the information and the authority of the Prime Minister to declare an heir.

“I heard the prime minister, while announcing Oyo’s death, saying he had left an heir. I don’t know where he got that information from,” Kamurasi said.

He further argued that the Prime Minister was not in a position to make such a declaration because he is not a member of the Royal Family.

“Moreover, he has no right or power to make such an announcement because he is not a member of the Royal Family,” Kamurasi added.

The conflicting statements have thrown the succession process into uncertainty at a time when the Babiito clan is preparing to determine who will occupy the Tooro throne.

BABIITO TO LOOK BACK TO RUKIDI III LINEAGE

Asked about the possible successor, Kamurasi said the Babiito clan will explore other options within the royal lineage associated with Omukama Rukidi III.

“What will happen now is that we shall go back to the Rukidi lineage and those issues have to be sorted out by the clan,” he said.

Rukidi III, the grandfather of the late King Oyo, reigned over Tooro from 1921 to 1965.

The development suggests that the succession could involve consultations within the wider Babiito royal lineage if the claim of a direct heir is not established through the customary process.

OMUSUUGA TAKES CHARGE

Kamurasi’s position carries significant weight in the succession process because the Omusuuga heads the Babiito, the ruling royal clan of Tooro.

Under Tooro customs, the office of the Omusuuga assumes a central role during a vacancy on the throne following the death of a reigning Omukama.

The office oversees key cultural processes, including funeral arrangements, burial rites and the succession process.

The Omusuuga also convenes and chairs meetings concerning the funeral and succession and oversees the process of identifying and installing a new King.

A statement from Kamurasi’s office has maintained that all Kingdom institutions involved in the funeral and succession are expected to operate under his authority.

21-MEMBER COMMITTEE TO CHOOSE NEXT KING

Kamurasi is now leading a 21-member committee of Babiito elders tasked with handling the succession.

The committee is expected to identify the next King, communicate the decision to relevant stakeholders and organise the cultural rituals and ceremonies required for the installation of the new Omukama.

The Babiito maintain that succession is fundamentally a cultural matter and therefore falls under the authority of the Omusuuga and the royal clan.

This means that despite the earlier announcement by the Prime Minister and the statement attributed to Queen Mother Best Kemigisa, the question of who will succeed King Oyo remains unresolved.

KING OYO’S 31-YEAR REIGN ENDS

King Oyo died in the United States at the age of 34, bringing to an end a reign that began in 1995 when he was only three years old.

He ascended the throne following the death of his father, Omukama Patrick Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III, and went on to become one of Uganda’s most recognisable traditional leaders.

His death has now left the Babiito with the responsibility of determining the next custodian of the Tooro Crown.

For now, the biggest question remains whether King Oyo left a son who qualifies as heir — or whether the Babiito clan will have to look elsewhere within the Rukidi royal lineage for Tooro’s next King.

Singer Cindy Sanyu has described the bitter online feud between Crysto Panda and Gloria Bugie as a “fair fight”, arguing that although Bugie crossed the line by referencing Panda’s family losses, both musicians had inflicted painful personal attacks on each other.

The long-running clash between the two entertainers recently escalated after Bugie appeared to mock Panda over the loss of his parents and child, alongside remarks about his career and finances.

“Ever sat down and wondered why you are an orphan, lost a child, keep losing, after all years of hustling, trying every career, you’re still a mediocre,” Bugie wrote in a post that quickly drew criticism.

The remarks sparked outrage because Panda has publicly spoken about losing his father when he was young and his mother while he was still in high school.

Bugie later apologised to her fans, saying she had reacted after what she described as “merciless, endless attacks” on her, her career and family. She, however, stopped short of directly addressing or naming Panda in the apology.

Cindy, however, believes the exchange cannot be judged from one side.

Speaking in a recent interview, the self-styled King Herself said Panda’s alleged comments about Bugie’s body were equally personal and could have been deeply hurtful.

“I think the war is fair. There was fire from the East, and then came fire from the West, so it doesn’t matter how brutal it is. A war is a war. It’s fire for fire. There is no innocent side,” Cindy said.

She argued that attacks on a woman’s appearance can cut particularly deep because of the emotional investment many women put into their bodies and appearance.

“This is a woman; our bodies are sacred to us, and we are very sensitive about our bodies. Somebody has taken time to make themselves beautiful, and you just trash all her efforts in one go. It would hurt a woman very deeply,” she said.

Cindy nevertheless acknowledged that Bugie’s decision to bring Panda’s deceased parents and child into the argument was unacceptable.

“What she said was over the line but at the end of the day it is a fair battle. They can each heal their wounds and let that be over,” she said.

Her comments come days after Sheebah Karungi publicly intervened in the dispute, taking a much firmer position against the use of Panda’s grief as ammunition.

Sheebah described the use of someone’s greatest loss, including the death of a parent or child, as unacceptable regardless of the disagreement that preceded it.

“If you are the kind of human being who can use someone’s greatest loss of a mother, a father, or a child as a weapon to attack them, then you are an evil spirit,” Sheebah said.

Sheebah also personally called Panda and urged him to walk away from the confrontation, acknowledging that he was hurt and angry but asking him to leave the matter to God.

At the centre of her argument was the belief that Panda’s status as a man should not mean he is expected to absorb unlimited personal attacks without being affected.

“Panda is a human being too. His humanity doesn’t disappear simply because he is a man,” she said.

READ: Sheebah defends Crysto Panda, tells him to leave Gloria Bugie to God

Bugie later responded to Sheebah, saying she expected a fair assessment from the music leader and arguing that Panda had also subjected her to personal attacks, including body shaming and insults about her career.

The dispute reportedly intensified after Panda commented on Bugie’s Mercedes-Benz purchase and her music career. Their exchanges then moved from criticism of music and careers to increasingly personal attacks, with Bugie at one point threatening legal action if Panda continued mentioning her name and brand.

With the disagreement now attracting intervention from some of Uganda’s biggest music names, Cindy’s position introduces another perspective: while some believe Bugie crossed an unforgivable line by invoking Panda’s losses, others argue that the personal nature of the exchanges means neither side emerged completely innocent.

For now, the question is whether the two entertainers will take the advice to heal their wounds and move on, or whether another round of the online battle is still to come.

KAMPALA — Ugandan biotechnology firm Dei BioPharma has filed seven ground-breaking patents in the United States patent covering a modular portfolio of messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer-vaccine technologies, the company announced, positioning a locally anchored programme within the global effort to develop off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies.

The applications spearheaded by Dei BioPharma founder Dr. Matthias Magoola as inventor, were lodged with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) between 18 and 25 August and span a range of tumour targets — from recurrent fusion junctions and driver mutations to viral oncoproteins and an overarching omnibus platform design.

Dei BioPharma, in a statement announcing the development, describes the innovation as an approach in which pre-manufactured vaccine candidates are directed at molecular changes that recur across defined groups of patients — making the biotech firm to lead innovation in global efforts for cancer prevention. It’s the first an African based entity takes lead in such a ground-breaking initiative.

Individuals are matched to a candidate by the tumour’s molecular alteration and, where relevant, by human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type — rather than by the organ in which the cancer originated.

“Our ambition is global and deliberately long-term: to develop a modular immune platform capable of addressing the molecular drivers behind an expanding share of human cancers,” Dr Magoola said in the statement.

“These filings are an effort to build, target by target, the scientific and manufacturing foundation that will make many cancers preventable and controllable or less likely to return.”

The seven applications cover a BCR-ABL fusion-junction target associated with fusion-positive leukaemia; an EGFRvIII deletion-junction target relevant to certain glioma subgroups; an NPM1 target in molecularly defined acute myeloid leukaemia; a multiplex RAS-hotspot design aimed at RAS-mutant tumours across several organs; a TP53 R175H target; sequence-attenuated HPV16/18 cassettes addressing HPV-driven malignancies; and the omnibus platform architecture intended to support multiple target-specific products.

Dr. Magoola has previously co-authored peer previewed work, that proposes a strict filter for candidate targets: that a target recur within a defined subgroup, be absent from essential normal tissue, and be naturally presented by tumour cells.

The development is the latest in a series of intellectual-property global milestones by Dei BioPharma and Dr. Magoola, with the Ugandan scientist holding more than 100 patents filed with the US Trademark and Patent Office. About 70 have so far been published by the USPTO.

In filings over the last two years, the USPTO has among others, accepted applications for a universal mRNA cancer-vaccine platform and a lower-cost immune therapy, and in July this year the US Food and Drug Administration provided preliminary comments on PSI-033, a proposed biosimilar to the cancer drug Yervoy.

Established in 2014 by Dr. Magoola, Dei BioPharma operates a manufacturing complex at Matugga in Wakiso District near Kampala — which is one of the largest such facilities on the African continent — inaugurated in 2021.

Licensed by Uganda’s National Drug Authority in 2024 to manufacture a wide range of medicines, Dei BioPharma aims to produce vaccines, biologics, biosimilars and mRNA-based therapeutics for the African and global markets, aiming to make especially biological drugs affordable to more than 90 percent of the world population who currently cannot afford them.

On the latest development, Dei BioPharma said it plans to prioritise candidates based on how common a target is, biological validation, unmet medical need, manufacturability and a feasible clinical pathway, with particular interest in settings such as minimal residual disease and recurrence prevention.

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After years away from the major solo concert stage, Bebe Cool is planning his return, and he already knows who he wants the show to honour.

The veteran Ugandan singer says he will dedicate his concert next year to the wives of UPDF soldiers, whom he describes as “the forgotten heroes.”

I will hold my concert next year and it will be dedicated to the wives of the soldiers of the UPDF. The forgotten heroes.

Bebe Cool has a history of giving his major concerts a cause beyond entertainment.

On August 3, 2018, he took the Golden Heart Concert to Kololo Airstrip and used the event to raise funds for children with complex heart conditions who needed specialised surgeries in India.

His next concert will carry a different cause.

This time, Bebe Cool wants to shine a light on the wives of soldiers, although he has not yet explained exactly how the concert will support them.

The announcement gives his long-awaited return a clear purpose, even before he reveals the concert date and other details.

I will hold my concert next year and it will be dedicated to the wives of the soldiers of the UPDF.
THE FORGOTTEN HEROES.
Tell me,what do you think about these unsung HEROES?

— Bebe Cool (@BebeCoolUG) August 30, 2026