JONAN TUSINGWIRE    

The organizers of this year’s 28th Coronation of Toro kingdom have pulled out and withdrawn their services just two months to the day citing internal fights and misunderstandings between Tooro kingdom leadership and The royal family. It is alleged that the King of Tooro, Oyo Nyimba Iguru ordered the removal of signatories from a certain bank account harbouring the coronation funds, and only left his mother as the only signatory. This did not go well with kingdom officials who decided to step aside as a sign of their disappointment.

Every year, the kingdom of Tooro celebrates empango, in honour of their culture and their king. The king chooses a clan from the Tooro kingdom to organise the celebrations. Last year, the king of Toro Kingdom Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi the fourth (iv) identified the Abagaya clan to be responsible for this year’s Empango celebrations scheduled for 12th September this year.

However, in a controversial twist of events, the Abagaya clan members announced their withdrawal of services just two months before the celebrations.

The development was announced during the press conference organized by the clan in Fort Portal led by the clan head Mugabyomu Richard Bakasemeza Abwooli.

Trouble between the organizers and the kingdom started when the king announced that the Queen mother be the only principal signatory to the bank account for the coronation as opposed to the three members who had been picked previously.

Even when they tried to meet the king over the issue, Mugabyomu Richard Bakasemeza Abwooli, says the meeting was cancelled at the last minute.

According to Mugabyomu Richard, the clan head, it had been agreed that the deputy Prime Minister Ngabu Ateenyi and the Queen Mother Best Kemigisa be the principal signatories while Richard Mugabyomu, the clan head and Kabanyagaki Evelyn, the clan treasurer be the co-signatories.

Richard told journalists that the actions by the kingdom administration exhibited a lack of trust, openness and transparency. They further reveal that mandating the Queen Mother to be the only Principal signatory was quite devastating as it would be hard for them to interface with her to hold her accountable given her status as the Queen Mother and her availability and accessibility.

Efforts to get a comment from the kingdom spokesperson were futile as he was not available by the time we filed this story.