By Aggrey Baba
While many knew him as the young monarch who ascended the Tooro throne as a 3-year-old and grew into one of the country’s most recognizable cultural leaders, those who were close to the late King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru remember another side of him, as a remarkably humble, humorous and God-fearing man who wanted to live as normally as possible despite carrying the crown.
Fabrice Rurinda, the Mayor of Entebbe Municipality, as he joined hundreds of Ugandans waiting to receive the late King’s corpse at the airport in Entebbe, offered a deeply personal glimpse into the private life of the late Omukama, describing a King who treated friends as family, loved discussing the Bible and could abandon royal protocol simply to check on his friends.
Rurinda says young King’s greatest quality was perhaps his ability to make people around him feel like friends rather than subjects.
“The most important thing about him is that he wanted all of us to get saved as friends,” Rurinda said.
The Mayor recalled that conversations with Oyo could easily turn into Bible discussions, with the King frequently introducing scripture into their conversations and engaging his friends about Godly matters.
“So many times you’d be having a conversation with him, and he brings up a Bible verse. He wants to have a discussion with you about the Bible,” he recalled.
His concern for faith was not merely theoretical. Rurinda said Oyo would sometimes call his friends and ask about their spiritual lives and those of their children.
“He would call and ask, have you taken the kids to church? Have you been to church?”
It was this personal concern, Rurinda said, that made Oyo’s friendships different.
“He had that love for family, not just his personal family, but his friends. He treated us like family. So you felt a bond.”
And despite being a King, Oyo was, according to Rurinda, remarkably accessible. The late king could reportedly get into a car, call a friend and ask where they were, and before long, show up.
“He was also the type who would get into a car, ask you, ‘Where are you?’ You tell him, ‘I’m in this place,’ and you’d see him appear. He had no airs about him,” he said.
That simplicity extended to the way he moved and spent his private time. Rurinda said Oyo preferred travelling with minimal security, sometimes with only one guard or even alone, and enjoyed going to the gym in the evenings.
“He wanted to be most times with either just one guard or alone. He loved going to the gym in the evenings,” he said.
For Rurinda, this captured the unusual balance Oyo tried to strike throughout his life (being a King while still wanting to experience the ordinary life of a young man).
“So he wanted to be normal, but serving in his capacity as the King,” he said.
Oyo’s death at the age of 34 has consequently left Tooro facing not only the loss of a king who had been on the throne for nearly three decades, but also the difficult task of preserving an institution and legacy built around a King who had grown into a man before the eyes of his subjects.
Oyo was enthroned in 1995 following the death of his father, King Patrick Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III. His coronation at just three years old made him one of the world’s youngest reigning monarchs.
Over the years, he became increasingly involved in the affairs of Tooro, championing development, cultural preservation and the unity of his people.
But as the kingdom mourns and questions about the future inevitably emerge, Rurinda is concerned that the circumstances surrounding the transition should not destroy what Oyo spent his life building.
According to him, the late King was fundamentally a peacemaker who wanted to bring his people together rather than divide them.
“He was a peacemaker. He was a guy who wanted to unite his people. He wanted to keep them together.”
Rurinda therefore urged Tooro’s leaders, subjects and the wider country to protect the unity that Oyo valued.
“As a country, I pray that we pray for his people to have strength, to have the wisdom to try and keep his legacy clean and to show him the same love that he had for his people,” he said.
For him, keeping Tooro united and protecting Oyo’s values would be the ultimate tribute to the departed king.
And when asked to reduce the personality of a King he knew personally to just three words, Rurinda said: humble, funny, and most important, God-fearing.
Those three descriptions perhaps capture the paradox of Oyo’s life as a King born into extraordinary circumstances who, according to those closest to him, spent much of his personal life trying to remain ordinary (omuntu wawansi). (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
