Land, Lawsuits And Legacy: The Financial Life Of Uganda’s Queen Mother
(FORT PORTAL, UGANDA) – There is no official, audited net worth statement for Best Kemigisa, the Queen Mother of Uganda’s Tooro Kingdom. She is not listed on any stock exchange and neither does she file public accounts. But her financial footprint is deeply woven into the kingdom’s troubled finances, a series of bitter court battles and a long-running debate over who owns what in one of Uganda’s oldest monarchies.
Estimating her wealth is like trying to measure a river by looking only at the stones that break its surface. The full current is below. Based on court records, land transactions, government filings and published accounts of her legal disputes, The Daily Handle estimates her personal net worth in a range of $10 million to $15 million (UGX 37 billion to UGX 55 billion), though the true figure could be higher or lower depending on how one values disputed assets and unresolved claims.
The Land Sale That Started It All
The clearest window into Kemigisa’s financial dealings comes from a single transaction: the sale of 9,921 acres of land to the Ugandan government for UGX 4.5 billion ($1.2 million). The land was sold in her capacity as the registered administrator of the estate of her late husband, King Patrick Olimi Kaboyo II, who died in August 1995.
The land, located in Kibiito Sub-county in Kabarole District, was bought by the government using the Land Fund. The transaction was completed in 2010, but it triggered years of legal warfare.
The Queen Mother claimed her lawyer, Bob Kasango, failed to remit the full amount to her. She sued him for UGX 3.831 billion ($1 million). In January 2021, Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Jamson Karemani ordered Kasango to pay UGX 3 billion as compensation, plus a fine of UGX 12 million or face five years in prison. The money was to be paid in 30 days at an interest rate of 8% per annum.
Kasango never paid. He died in prison in February 2021 while appealing the sentence.
A separate legal battle followed. The law firm of Balondemu, Candia and Wandera Advocates tried to recover UGX 1.028 billion ($278,000) in unpaid legal fees from her. In May 2026, High Court Judge Musa Ssekaana dismissed the application, ruling that the law firm had failed to provide evidence of demanding payment from Kasango or attempting to execute the court’s judgment before turning to its own client.
Then came the tax dispute. In July 2010, the lands ministry ordered the Queen Mother to pay UGX 273 million ($74,000) to the Uganda Revenue Authority as withholding tax on the land sale. The ministry’s permanent secretary, Gabindadde-Musoke, wrote to her in June 2010 asking her to pay the tax amount and provide receipts for records.
For a woman who had already buried one king and was raising another, these financial battles painted a picture of a royal institution struggling to manage its own affairs.
The Gaddafi Connection
During King Oyo’s childhood, the Queen Mother forged a relationship that would prove financially and symbolically important: an alliance with the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi bankrolled the renovation of the Karuziika Palace, which had lain in ruins for 30 years after being devastated by Idi Amin’s soldiers in turbulent 1970’s.
In 1996, Gaddafi supported Tooro Kingdom with funds to renovate the palace. He sent three architects from Tripoli to Fort Portal to draw up plans and get information on local materials. The renovation was estimated to cost $10 million.
In 2001, Gaddafi attended King Oyo’s coronation anniversary in Fort Portal and laid the foundation stone at the palace. Gaddafi was given the Omujwarakondo, the highest honour in the Tooro Kingdom, the first time it had been awarded since the kingdom’s founding in 1830. The renovation was completed in 2003.
After Gaddafi’s death in October 2011, a plaque commemorating his support was removed from the palace under unclear circumstances. The Libyan leader had befriended the Tooro royal family as if they were part of his extended family, making multiple trips to Uganda and supporting Oyo and his mother for years before his death.
The exact amount of Gaddafi’s financial support has never been publicly disclosed. Some of that money went into the palace. Some reportedly went into other ventures. What is clear is that without Gaddafi’s backing, the Tooro monarchy’s revival in the 1990s and early 2000s would have looked very different.
The Private Mansion On Ngome Hill
Beyond her official role, the Queen Mother owns a private estate at Ngome Hill in Kitumba, Fort Portal. The mansion was built and unveiled around June 2004, valued at approximately UGX 400 million ($108,000) at the time of construction. It holds a particular distinction: it was only the second palace ever custom-built by a Tooro Queen Mother.
Photos of the sprawling estate surfaced online in September 2026 and sparked intense public debate in Uganda. Critics called it evidence of an obsession with luxury. Supporters countered that a woman who spent decades rebuilding a ruined kingdom and raising a king from the age of three deserved a home of her own.
The comparison to embattled Speaker Anita Among has been made repeatedly in Ugandan public discourse. Among, whose own mansion in Bukedea district was completed in 2023 and features multiple self-contained rooms, swimming pools, a gym and a helipad, has faced similar accusations of lavish living while ordinary Ugandans struggle. The parallel is not lost on observers: two powerful women in Uganda, both accused of prioritising palaces over the people they are meant to serve.
The mansion’s current market value is difficult to determine. Prime land in Fort Portal now sells for between UGX 80 million and UGX 150 million ($21,600 to $40,500) per acre. If the Kitumba estate sits on several acres, which photographs suggest, its value could easily run into billions of Ugandan shillings.
The Foundation And The Philanthropy
Kemigisa is not merely a custodian of wealth, but a distributor of it. She founded the Queen Mother Best Foundation in 2011, under a vision of empowering women, young people and marginalised groups including the disabled, widows, single mothers, people living with HIV/AIDS and orphans.
Through the foundation, she operates a Vocational Training Institution and a Nursery and Primary School. The vocational institute offers skills in carpentry, business development, home economics, mechanics, tailoring and hairdressing, with bursaries for young people facing life challenges. An orphanage was conceptualised in late 2023 and has constructed one of four planned care homes, initially designed to house up to twenty children from the age of three.
She also founded the African Queens and Women Cultural Leaders Network, which was launched in September 2011 at Karuziika, the seat of Tooro Kingdom. In 2014, she received the Champion of Women’s Development in Africa award at the annual Mkiva Humanitarian Awards ceremony at Walter Sisulu University in South Africa, as reported by the Queen Mother Best Foundation.
The foundation’s assets and annual operating budget are not publicly disclosed. But its existence adds a layer of institutional wealth to Kemigisa’s financial profile that sits outside any personal net worth calculation.
The Defamation Damages And The Legal Wins
Kemigisa has also been on the winning side of financial judgments. In September 2026, Justice Musa Ssekaana awarded her UGX 83 million ($21,500) in damages from Red Pepper Publications over articles published in 2012.
The articles, published in May and June 2012, claimed she had been arrested in the United States in possession of fake dollars worth $5 million, that her passport had been confiscated, and that she was briefly detained by Federal Police. The court found that Kemigisa suffered damage to her reputation, as reported by the Daily Monitor.
Justice Ssekaana granted her UGX 72 million in general damages and UGX 11 million in punitive damages, with 10% interest from the date of judgment. He also ordered Red Pepper to apologise to the Queen Mother twice in one week and issued a permanent injunction against further defamatory statements.
The court rejected her demand for UGX 1 billion, calling it excessive.
These wins are modest compared with the sums involved in the land disputes, but they reinforce a pattern: Kemigisa has been willing to fight in court to protect both her finances and her reputation.
The Palace, The Succession And The House Arrest
Money and power in a kingdom are inseparable. After King Oyo’s death in August 2026 in the United States, where he was receiving cancer treatment, the Queen Mother found herself at the centre of a succession crisis that had direct financial implications.
In September 2026, reports emerged that she had formally surrendered the keys to Karuziika Palace, yielding to pressure from the Babiito royal clan. The handover cleared the way for preparations for the coronation of a new king, Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a journalist with the public broadcaster UBC. The Queen Mother and her daughter, Princess Ruth Komuntale, had initially resisted the succession, insisting that Oyo had left a will designating a son as his heir.
Earlier in September 2026, she claimed that the Uganda People’s Defence Forces had withdrawn royal guards from the palace and placed her and her family under effective house arrest. “We cannot leave or receive people freely. We are under house arrest,” she said in a statement.
The UPDF denied the claim. Acting Director of Defence Public Information Chris Magezi said the military had instead reinforced security given the scale of the event amid threats from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but remained uninvolved in the kingdom’s succession process. State Minister for Internal Affairs Juma Witonze Kiseka similarly dismissed the house-arrest claims, saying the security presence should not be interpreted as a restriction.
The dispute over the palace and the succession is not just ceremonial. Whoever controls the palace controls access to the kingdom’s land, its government stipend and its relationships with donors and foreign benefactors. The Queen Mother’s decision to step aside removed a major obstacle to the new king’s enthronement. It also signalled the end of an era in which she had been the central figure managing the kingdom’s affairs.
The Land Grabbing Allegations
The Queen Mother’s financial legacy is not without controversy. In 2018, a group of Tooro elders under the umbrella body Isaazi Ly’Abantu Bakuru Ba Tooro appeared before the commission of inquiry into land matters, accusing Kemigisa of masterminding evictions and land grabbing in the kingdom.
In June 2026, President Museveni publicly warned Kemigisa against carrying out illegal land evictions. “The law is very clear; no one should be evicted from their land. That person should stop,” Museveni said on Voice of Tooro radio.
The warning stemmed from complaints by residents of Kitumba. Kemigisa had in the past come under criticism for evicting families using UPDF soldiers attached to King Oyo’s security detail. In 2023, three UPDF bodyguards assigned to the Queen Mother were arrested and detained at Muhote Barracks on the orders of Lieutenant General Kayanja Muhanga for allegedly participating in illegal land evictions in Kitumba Ngombe.
The illegal evictions saw the Queen Mother displace dozens of families, destroy banana plantations and detain several people. The arrests came after the bodyguards attempted to evict an 80 year old man, John Masiko, who was born on the land and had buried his parents there.
The Queen Mother later dragged Masiko to court, accusing him of illegally using her land. The case highlighted what critics describe as a pattern of using royal authority and state security to dispossess ordinary people.
Separately, in 2010, The Independent reported that Kemigisa allegedly evicted 60 year old John Businge from disputed land with the support of armed members of the King’s security force.
The Queen Mother has never been convicted of any land grabbing offence. But the allegations have shadowed her financial dealings and raised uncomfortable questions about how royal assets have been managed.
The Conflicting Accounts Of The Kasango Money
The legal battle between Kemigisa and Bob Kasango revealed deep contradictions in the Queen Mother’s own accounts of her finances.
According to a detailed investigation published by The Independent in October 2010, Kemigisa told her lawyers at Kasirye, Byaruhanga and Company Advocates that she had not received any money from Kasango. She repeated this claim several times, even when newspapers reported that she had received money.
But Andrew Kasirye, a senior partner at the firm, told The Independent that authenticated bank documents indicated large payments amounting to about UGX 3 billion had been made by Kasango to the Queen Mother or to third parties on her behalf. When confronted with this, Kasirye said: “Then she is a liar and that is why we withdrew from the case because we discovered that there is something personal between her and Kasango and not just money and she was using us to fight her battles.”
The lands ministry permanent secretary, Gabindadde, wrote to Kemigisa’s lawyers saying that she had instructed him to pay all the money to Kasango’s law firm, Hall and Partners, and had confirmed that Hall and Partners should receive the money on her behalf.
When Andrew Mwenda, Managing Editor of The Independent, visited her, the Queen Mother told him that Kasango had paid her “some little money” of about UGX 400 million after the first release of funds. When asked how much money she believed Kasango owed her, she said she did not know.
Because of the conflicting information, her lawyers felt they could not continue to represent her and withdrew from the case.
These contradictions make any precise calculation of Kemigisa’s net worth impossible. They also suggest that the true state of her finances may be known only to her.
What Her Wealth Actually Looks Like
There is no single number that captures Best Kemigisa’s financial standing. A reasonable breakdown looks something like this:
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Real estate: The Ngome Hill mansion in Kitumba, land holdings in and around Fort Portal, and any residual claims to kingdom properties. Estimated value: $5 million to $10 million.
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Legal settlements and judgments: The UGX 3 billion Kasango compensation order (unpaid at the time of his death), the UGX 83 million defamation award, and other recoverable sums. Estimated value: $500,000 to $2 million.
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Foundation assets: The Queen Mother Best Foundation’s vocational institute, nursery and primary school, and orphanage project. These are institutional assets, not personal wealth, but they represent significant capital under her direction. Estimated value: $2 million to $5 million.
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Cash and liquid assets: Unknown. Court records suggest she has struggled to collect debts owed to her, indicating that liquidity has been an issue.
A conservative estimate puts her personal net worth in the $10 million to $15 million range. A more generous calculation, factoring in disputed land claims and the full value of foundation assets, could push the figure higher.
The Woman Behind The Figures
Best Kemigisa was born in April 1967 in Rwebisengo, in present day Ntoroko district. She is the daughter of Prince Mujungu of the Batuku tribe. She was educated at Kahinju Primary School, Mpanga Senior Secondary School and Kyebambe Girls School, all in Fort Portal.
In 1987, when she was only 20 years old, she married the then King of Tooro, Patrick David Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III. The marriage produced three children: Princess Ruth Nsemere Komuntale, Prince Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru and Princess Celia Komukyeya.
She became Queen Mother at 28, widowed in August 1995 when King Patrick Olimi Kaboyo II died suddenly. Her son, Oyo, was three years old. He was enthroned in September 1995. She served as one of a team of regents who helped rule Tooro until Oyo reached his majority in 2010.
She buried her husband. She buried her daughter, Princess Celia Komukyeya, who died of leukaemia at four years old in 1997. And in September 2026, she buried her son, King Oyo, who died at 34.
Her only surviving child is Princess Ruth Nsemere Komuntale, the Princess Royal of Tooro, who lives and works in the United States.
Net Worth Disclaimer
The figures presented in this article are estimates compiled by The Daily Handle from court records, land transaction documents, government filings, published investigative reports and publicly available financial information.
They do not represent an official valuation, audited accounts or any declaration by Best Kemigisa or the Tooro Kingdom.
Net worth calculations for individuals whose assets are held privately, disputed in court or tied to traditional institutions are inherently imprecise. Readers should treat all figures as indicative rather than definitive.