There is no second Princess Elizabeth Bagaya in Uganda. There will never be.
She buried a husband, raised a king, and outlived all the men who tried to use her. That is Bagaya in one line.
At 90 years old, she has lived five lives that most people cannot live in one. Lawyer. Supermodel. Minister. Widow. And the woman who raised Oyo.
She was born in 1936 in Kabarole, daughter of Omukama George Rukidi III and Queen Kezia. She was born inside the palace, but she never wanted to die inside the palace.
In 1959 she left for Cambridge. In 1962, she returned as the first East African woman with a law degree from Cambridge University. In 1965, she became the first East African woman called to the English Bar. In 1966, she became the first woman ever admitted to the Ugandan Bar.
In Toro today, many princesses are known for their outfits at Empango. Bagaya was known for her wig and gown in court when no woman had worn it before.
Then politics destroyed what law had built.
In 1966, Obote abolished kingdoms. The young lawyer-princess had no kingdom to serve. She fled to London. And London put her on magazines.
She signed with Ford Models. She became the first Black woman to be on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar. In the 1960s, that was unheard of. She went to New York, studied acting, acted in international films. She was famous outside Uganda before most Ugandans knew what a supermodel was.
Idi Amin, who loved fame, called her back. In 1974, he made her Foreign Minister of Uganda. The Batebe of Toro was now the face of Uganda to the world.
But Amin’s State Research Bureau does not respect beauty. False accusations, jealousy. She was placed under house arrest. In 1975, she escaped Uganda with help, leaving everything behind for the second time in less than ten years.
She survived Obote II as well. In exile in London, she finally did something for herself. In 1981, she secretly married Prince Wilberforce Nyabongo, an aviation engineer. A quiet man. Not a politician, not a king. Her choice.
Five years later, he died. Plane crash, December 1986. He was 32. She was 50. She had no children with him. She never married again. She never had children.
That is the part that explains her. She resigned as Uganda’s Ambassador to the United States in 1988, just after his death. When a woman who has survived Cambridge, modelling, and Amin goes quiet, it is not because she is tired. It is because she is grieving.
The state called her again. Ambassador to Germany. Ambassador to the Vatican. High Commissioner to Nigeria. Because even governments that have hurt you remember you are competent.
And then Toro called her for the last time.
In 1995, her brother, King Patrick Kaboyo VII, died. He left a son, three years old. Oyo.
Who do you leave a three-year-old king with? The politicians? The generals? You leave him with a woman who has seen Cambridge and Harpers Bazaar and Amin’s torture chambers and a husband’s casket, and has not been corrupted by any of it.
For years, Princess Bagaya was the regent, the guardian, the Batebe who held Oyo’s hand until he could hold the royal spear himself. If Oyo grew up as a gentle king, it is because he was raised by a woman who had seen brutality and chose softness.
Now Oyo is dead. He is not yet buried. And Fort Portal is fighting over his chair, with votes in hotels and endorsements from army headquarters.
And the woman who actually knows what a proper succession looks like is 90, childless, watching the same palace intrigue she saw when her father died.
Toro has many princesses on Instagram now. It has one Princess Bagaya.
If the kingdom wants to remember what dignity looks like, it should not look on Social media. It should look at the 90-year-old widow who raised the last king, and ask her to speak.
