{"id":45143,"date":"2026-09-10T12:14:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=45143"},"modified":"2026-09-10T12:14:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:14:44","slug":"ugandan-kingdom-gripped-by-succession-battle-after-monarchs-death","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/ugandan-kingdom-gripped-by-succession-battle-after-monarchs-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Ugandan kingdom gripped by succession battle after monarch&#8217;s death"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The traditional Ugandan kingdom of Tooro was plunged into a bitter succession battle on Thursday after \u200bthe family of the late king, Oyo Nyimba, rejected clan members&#8217; choice of a television news anchor to succeed him.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>While \u200cUganda is a constitutional republic, it has several ancient kingdoms whose leaders are revered as symbols of tradition and wield vast social influence.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>King Oyo, who became the world&#8217;s youngest reigning monarch when he took the throne in 1995 as a 3-year-old boy, died on August 27 at the age of 34 in the United \u200bStates, where he had been receiving treatment for cancer.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He is scheduled to be buried on Saturday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The royal clan&#8217;s succession committee announced on Wednesday that it had chosen Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a news \u2060anchor and editor at the state-run broadcaster<i>\u00a0Uganda Broadcasting Corporation<\/i>, as the new king. Kijanangoma is a cousin of the late king.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But hours after \u200bthe committee made its announcement, Oyo&#8217;s sister, Princess Ruth Komuntale, told a press conference that her brother&#8217;s will indicated that his son should \u200bsucceed him.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The kingdom&#8217;s Spokesperson shared a copy of the relevant portion of the will, which is dated September 14, 2022.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It states, &#8220;I hereby declare and direct that if, at the date of my death, I am survived by a son\u00a0lawfully\u00a0recognised\u00a0as my biological Son, I appoint him as my heir to \u200bthe Throne of the Kingdom of Tooro.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":45144,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-45143","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Traditional Ugandan kingdom of Tooro was plunged into a bitter succession battle","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45145,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45143\/revisions\/45145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=45143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}