Queen Mother Best Kemigisa has delivered an emotional farewell to her son, Tooro’s late King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, recalling a bond built on prayer and revealing the heartbreaking plea she made to God when his health deteriorated.
Speaking during the funeral service at St. John’s Cathedral in Fort Portal on Saturday, Kemigisa said that while she was in hospital, she pleaded with God to take her life instead of that of her son.
“When I was in the hospital, I told God to take me first. I said, ‘God, please leave my son alone; take me first,’” she said.
But her prayer was answered in a way she never expected.
Instead of sparing her son, Kemigisa said, God took Oyo before her, leaving her to confront the pain she had hoped to spare him.
“He decided to take him first. I said, ‘Why?’ Because he was closer to you than me?” she recalled.
The words captured the anguish of a mother mourning not simply a king, but her child—the boy she had raised, prayed with and watched ascend to the throne.
Kemigisa described Oyo as an exceptionally good, peaceful, merciful and prayerful person, saying she sometimes wondered why such a person had been taken from her.
“He was too good, even better than me. I asked Jesus, ‘Why did you take me instead?’ But Jesus refused, and I asked myself, ‘What am I going to do?’” she said.
Yet, amid the grief, Kemigisa recalled one of the most remarkable aspects of her relationship with Oyo: the way their roles changed as he grew older.
She said she introduced her son to prayer when he was still a child, and the two would not go to bed without praying together.
But as Oyo grew into adulthood, she said, he became the one who guided her spiritually.
“I taught him how to pray when he was young, and we could not sleep without praying. But when he grew up, he taught me how to pray,” Kemigisa said.
She recalled how Oyo would write down Bible scriptures and ask family members to interpret them, before laughing at them affectionately.
“He would write down scriptures and ask us to interpret whatever he had written, while laughing at us lovingly,” she said.
For Kemigisa, the memory illustrates the extraordinary journey of a son who grew from a child she taught into a man who became her spiritual guide.
She described Oyo as peaceful and happy, saying he showed mercy to others and served the people of Tooro with humility.
“He was a peaceful person, always happy and merciful. He was a good King to Tooro, but you cannot go against what God has decided,” she said.
The Queen Mother also thanked the people of Tooro for standing with the royal family throughout the period of mourning.
She said the continued presence of mourners reflected the deep affection the people had for their King.
“It has been three weeks, but the people of Tooro have continued coming here in large numbers, crying for their King. The whole Kingdom has remained peaceful, and the Tooro people have mourned in peace,” she said.
Kemigisa urged the people of Tooro to preserve that spirit of peace, saying it would be one of the greatest ways to honour Oyo’s memory.
“We should continue to be peaceful, just as our King always wanted, and we should not shame him. The whole world mourned him and is still mourning him,” she said.
Oyo died in the United States on August 27 after battling aggressive cancer. His body was repatriated to Uganda on September 4, as Tooro began a series of funeral rites culminating in his burial at the royal tombs in Karambi.
His death brought to an end a reign that began when he ascended the Tooro throne as a child. He remained the reigning Omukama until his death.
Saturday’s funeral service brought together members of the royal family, government officials, cultural leaders, religious leaders and hundreds of mourners who gathered to pay their final respects.
But behind the public mourning of the Omukama was a deeply personal loss for Kemigisa.
She was mourning the child she had once held close, the son she taught to pray, and the man who eventually taught her how to pray.
Her plea to God had been simple: take her instead and spare her son.
But, in the painful reality she now faces, her son went first.
And as Tooro mourns its King, Kemigisa mourns the child who, in her own words, became her teacher.
