The Kabalegas: Gone are the days of royal opulence

Like most great kings of yore, Kabalega was a very wealthy man, with his net worth estimated to be $250 million (about Ush890 billion) in today’s currency, according to Apollo Rwamparo, current deputy prime minister of Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom. 
Most of Kabalega’s wealth was inherited by his son and successor Sir Tito Winyi and such is the wealth Princess Kabagahya and her 41 siblings  were born into. 
 
But for Kabalega’s grandchildren, the sunny days were shortlived, and it is evident that they have never recovered from the damage they suffered when President Apollo Milton Obote abolished kingdoms in 1967. 

The turning point
With the abolition, many of the kingdom’s properties were seized by the Ugandan government, the flamboyant lifestyles whittled away, and things went south for his family when he died in 1971. 
The king’s death not only marked the end of the royal razzle dazzle, but some of his youngest children, such as Princess Kabagahya, never got a chance to go to school while others dropped out due to lack of school fees. 

“My father died when I and five of my siblings had not yet been enrolled in school so I never got a chance to even start. I was left with my stepmother and, as you can imagine, life with stepmothers is always tough so at 14, I decided to get married,” Princess Kabagahya says, looking past me, as if staring at something that is not even there. 
 
“I had my first born by age 15 and gave birth to 10 children in total,” she says, speaking in her native Lunyoro. Now 60 years old and widowed, Kabagahya lives in a remote village called Kyandangi in Masindi District where she has spent most of her life relying on subsistence farming as her main source of livelihood. 

After their father’s death, she says:  “All our wealth remained in the hands of the Administrator General’s office, save for household items and cows.”  Since then, Princess Kabagahya and most of her 16 surviving siblings have remained in financial ruin.  

Prince Nyaika Winyi, Princess Gafabusa Abwooli and Princess Joan Kabahanika were born to the same mother, Hana Mabone Nyangabyaki, who is now aged 75 and the last surviving widow of Sir Tito Winyi.
 
When King Winyi died, Ms Nyangabyaki returned to her home village in Kyamongi, which is located about 10 kilometres from Hoima City, from where she raised her three children.  
Ms Nyangabyaki, who is currently battling age-related ailments such as ulcers, diabetes and high blood pressure, says she has struggled financially since her husband died and “no help has ever come from the kingdom.”

 
“I tried to educate my children using the little money I got from small scale farming but I got stuck along the way. Only one of my children went up to Senior Six; only one completed Senior Four while the other dropped out in Senior Five,” she said, speaking from a private hospital on the outskirts of Kampala where she had gone to see her sick son, Prince Nyaika Winyi.

Today, it is the three children who look after their mother but they are also struggling to make ends meet. Without professional qualifications, they have never really had well-paying, formal jobs or stable sources of income.  “We do not really have specific sources of income; we dabble in whatever business is good in a particular season; if it’s farming season we venture into farming,” says Princess Kabahanika.
 
The fortunate ones
But there are fortunate ones, such as Princess Alice Bagaaya, who had already completed her education by the time Sir Tito Winyi died. Now a retired enrolled midwife, Princess Bagaaya has been able to live a decent life, albeit devoid of the royal grandeur she enjoyed when her father was still king because she was employed at Masindi Hospital for the bigger part of her adult life. 

When I meet her at her daughter’s home in Masindi Town, 80-year-old Princess Bagaaya, who is also now a widow and living on a measly pension,  says she has been in and out of hospital lately, and is struggling to pay her medical bills. 

Like her siblings, she never got a penny from her father’s wealth when Sir Tito Winyi died. “Our father was a wealthy man,” she says confidently. “He owned swathes of land and even had shares in big corporations such as Nile Breweries Ltd. He even left a lot of cash in the Administrator General’s office, which was supposed to be shared among all his children, but we never saw a penny.” 

Princess Kabagahya said that even Solomon Gafabusa Iguru, her young brother and current king of Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom, lived in poverty from the time Sir Tito Winyi died until 1994 when President Museveni reinstated kingdoms (as cultural institutions and not as semi-federal governments as was the case during President Obote’s time). 

As Sir Tito Winyi’s official heir, Iguru’s fortunes improved when he took control of some of his father’s properties, including one square mile of a tea plantation in Bugambe, Hoima District when the government released them after 1994. Since then, King Iguru has not faced the financial hurdles most of his siblings have gone through. 

The king  ‘eats’  alone
Despite Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom’s earning from its properties and investments, such as Kinyara Sugar Works in which the cultural institution owns shares, King Iguru’s siblings say they never get any financial support from the kingdom. 

“All the money that comes from Kinyara Sugar Works, for instance, goes to Iguru alone. I don’t know anyone in our family who gets financial support from the king or the kingdom,” says Princess Bagaaya, adding that she’s even supposed to be working in the kingdom as the Batebe (head of the royal clan), according to her late father’s will, but “I got kicked out,”  the princess says. 
In recent times, she says, members of the royal family are not even allowed to enter the palace, “yet that’s our home, where we were born,” she says. 

On March 8, for instance, the royals were in the news when four sisters and one brother of  King Iguru were denied entry to the king’s palace by Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) soldiers on guard. 
Princess Joan Kabahanika, King Iguru’s youngest sister, said they had gone to see their brother who was reportedly sick. 

In defence of the soldiers’ actions, Andrew Byakutaga, Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom’s prime minister, said that palace officials had not been informed about the royals’ impending visit in advance as is required by palace rules. “The palace is the official residence of the king and all visitors, save for residents, are required to write to us in advance and get permission before visiting,” Mr Byakutaga says. 

And on the kingdom extending a helping hand to the king’s siblings, Mr Rwamparo admits that he knows about their plight and thinks that establishing a foundation that helps everyone from Kabalega’s lineage would be the best idea. But it’s still just an idea.  Sir Tito Winyi’s children’s problem, he says, was that a lot of their land has been grabbed over the years.  

Royal  fortune
Princess Kabagahya says that even Solomon Gafabusa Iguru, her young brother and current king of Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom, lived in poverty from the time Sir Tito Winyi died until 1994 when President Museveni reinstated kingdoms. 
As Sir Tito Winyi’s official heir, Iguru’s fortunes improved when he took control of some of his father’s properties including one square mile of a tea plantation in Bugambe, Hoima District when the government released them in the course of the years that followed 1994.