He was crowned at age three, reigned for three decades as one of the world's most-photographed child monarchs, and died at 34 still without an official queen. Now the Tooro Kingdom he left behind — a traditional monarchy tucked against the Rwenzori Mountains in western Uganda — is consumed by a succession fight that has turned a royal funeral into a public family feud.

King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, who ascended to the Tooro throne in 1995 after his father's death when he was just three years old, died on August 27 in the United States while being treated for what Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni described as aggressive cancer, according to NBC News. His three decades on the throne had made him a fixture of "world's youngest monarch" headlines for years; his death left the roughly two-million-strong kingdom, a constitutionally recognized cultural institution within Uganda, without an obvious heir.

On September 10, a 21-member committee of elders from the Babiito royal clan announced its choice for the 14th Omukama of Tooro: Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a cousin of the late king and a news anchor and editor at Uganda's state broadcaster, UBC. He was expected to be installed within days, according to the NBC News report.

A will, a secret son, and a locked palace

The announcement blew up almost immediately. Tooro Queen Mother Best Kemigisa publicly rejected the committee's pick, arguing it defied both a purported will left by King Oyo and an earlier government-brokered agreement to hold off on naming a successor until after his burial, according to The Observer. She cited a document dated September 2022 in which Oyo wrote that "if, at the date of my death, I am survived by a Son lawfully recognized as my biological Son, I appoint him as my heir to the Throne of the Kingdom of Tooro."

President Museveni himself waded in, saying Oyo had left behind "a young heir born out of wedlock" — a claim the late king's sister, Princess Ruth Komuntale Nsemere, backed up. "We are just very disappointed," she told NBC News, insisting the will "clearly stated" a son existed to inherit the crown.

"WE ARE JUST VERY DISAPPOINTED" — PRINCESS RUTH KOMUNTALE NSEMERE, KING OYO'S SISTER

The Babiito clan's succession committee says it isn't convinced. Clan officials told The Observer they were presented with two different names for the alleged heir and no photograph to go with either — hardly the paper trail expected for a future king. Clan spokesman Moses Musinguzi countered that tradition, not biology alone, should decide the succession, insisting the process must honor "Babiito traditions and the wishes of the people of Tooro."

The Queen Mother has raised the temperature further, alleging that royal guards were pulled from Karuziika Palace and replaced by Uganda People's Defence Forces soldiers, restricting mourners' access while King Oyo's body lay in state — and that celebrations for the new king-elect were held before the late monarch was even buried.

King Oyo's remains were flown home to cheering, grieving crowds lining the streets of Fort Portal, with burial set for this weekend at the Karambi Royal Tombs. Whether Kijanangoma or a still-unverified "hidden heir" ultimately takes the Tooro throne may not be settled until well after the mourning ends — leaving one of Uganda's oldest kingdoms without a clear king even as it buries its last one.