Prime
There are things you know professionally. And there are things you know because you belong.
I am a journalist. Sports journalist. I knew King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukiidi IV mostly through sport.
I am also his subject. But that is not enough. I have now lived under two Tooro kings.
I saw Oyo’s father, His Majesty Patrick Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III, return to his throne in 1993 when I was a very young boy in primary school.
I watched both grow into their reigns, albeit only briefly with his father. Now I have watched both die just when we seemed to be beginning to experience the full, beautiful potential of their lives.
This is difficult to carry. Oyo was only 34. It feels impossibly young. Senseless, too.
A lot will be written about the King. About the three-year-old who ascended the Tooro throne in 1995 and became the world’s youngest reigning monarch.
About the boy who grew into a young man carrying responsibilities that had found him before he could possibly understand them.
About his education, his work, his public life and his vision for Tooro. I will leave much of that to others.
I want to remember the King I knew through sport. And perhaps explain why his death feels so personal.
Like many of his subjects, I had loved him from a distance, just as I had loved his father when everything about the monarchy seemed like a beautiful fairytale to a toddler.
The King who listened
But the actual sit-down was almost two years ago. That was when I first understood something about him up close.
My team and I had gone to the Karuziika to present the vision of the Fort Portal City Marathon to him. We arrived with an idea to explain. He arrived, in a sense, with the weight of a kingdom.
What struck me was his patience. He listened. Properly listened.
He asked questions. He wanted to understand what we were proposing, what the marathon could mean for Fort Portal and Tooro and what we hoped it would become.
There was no rushing through the appointment. That stayed with me.
Seven months later, he stood at Boma Grounds for the inaugural Fort Portal City Marathon, as our guest of honour.
The idea we had taken to the Karuziika had become a road full of runners.
And the King was there. That is one of the memories that hurts now, but also one we celebrate.
Sometimes – some will argue often – life simply does not give us everything we hope for.
After discussing it with the Prime Minister, Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki, I had been looking forward to interviewing Oyo for the Nation Media Group. I was also looking forward to having him on my podcast, The Game of Life.
I wanted to sit him down properly. To talk about sport. Tooro. Youth. Leadership. Education. His childhood. His football. Arsenal. Thierry Henry.
The things a King says in public and perhaps the things he says when the microphones are off.
Those conversations will never happen. That hurts in a different way.
Because grief is not only about the memories you have. Sometimes it is about the memories you were expecting to make.
He belonged to sport, to community
Oyo loved football. Properly loved it. At home, he belonged to every football community. Heck, he belonged to every sporting discipline. He belonged to everyone.
Abroad, he was an Arsenal man. Thierry Henry was his favourite player. He played football himself in his free time.
There is something wonderfully human about that. Before the crown became an institution, there was a boy watching Henry glide past defenders in red and white.
A boy who wanted to play. A boy who had a favourite player. The King never entirely lost that boy.
But football was only the beginning. Almost every sporting discipline in Tooro seemed to find its way back to the Karuziika.
Rugby. Cycling. Golf. Athletics. Football. Name it. They all came.
The Uganda Sevens came to the palace. Rugby players found themselves in the presence of a King who understood their world. There were shirts to sign and conversations to have.
Golfers found a monarch who did not simply stand beside the game for photographs.
He played. He teed off tournaments. He backed junior competitions.
In cycling, he did not merely wave riders away from the start. He got on a bicycle himself and rode.
That was Oyo. Participation over ceremony. Sport over speeches. And young people at the centre.
The Tooro Masaza Cup became one of the kingdom’s great sporting and cultural gatherings, bringing the nine counties together.
Oyo understood what that meant. The competition was football. But it was also identity. Belonging. Pride. A meeting place.
A way of reminding young people that their county, their kingdom and their future could occupy the same space.
He understood that sport could do work. It could unite people. Discover talent. Build discipline. Improve health. Create opportunity. Give young people somewhere to belong.
And he understood something else that matters. Sport and education were never supposed to be enemies. They were companions.
He consistently encouraged young people to engage in sport while valuing education and skills development.
His wider youth agenda reflected that same belief – that young people needed opportunities to develop their talents, but also the knowledge and practical skills to build lives beyond the playing field.
That is why I hesitate to reduce his sporting legacy to enthusiasm. The enthusiasm was obvious.
You could see it. You could hear it. Sport was one of those subjects that seemed to make him relax into himself.
But there was purpose underneath it. He understood that sport was much bigger than the result. Bigger than the pitch. Bigger than the trophy.
A marathon could make a city move. A bicycle could take the King into the counties.
A golf tournament could put children on a course they might otherwise never have entered.
A football competition could bring nine counties together. A rugby team could walk into the Karuziika and feel that the palace was also theirs.
Sport could make a kingdom feel like a community.
What might have been
And perhaps that is why the news has been so difficult to absorb.
When the rumours began trickling in, I dismissed them. You do that with news you cannot bear to believe.
You tell yourself there must be another explanation. You hope against hope.
Then came confirmation. And suddenly the King was gone. Thirty-four. Thirty-four.
I don't remember the last time I sobbed this long. Perhaps because I knew him.
Perhaps because I am from Fort Portal. From Tooro. Perhaps because I am his subject.
Perhaps because I had believed there was still so much time. So many conversations. So many sporting occasions. So many possibilities.
And perhaps because I have seen this before. I lived under another Tooro king. I watched him go, too.
Now Oyo is gone. Both deaths arriving at that cruel point when you begin to believe you are finally seeing what their reigns might become.
Both leaving behind the unbearable question of what might have been.
That is the cruelty of losing someone at 34. You are not only mourning the life lived. You are mourning the life that was still coming.
There is a storm building up in my eyes all over again. I better stop here.
May His Majesty rest in peace.
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