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Nagginda on dating Kabaka: ‘Deep down, I wasn't sure if we're suitable for each other’

In her memoir, The Nnaabagereka of Buganda Queen Sylvia Nagginda Luswata, which is set to be launched on March 23, Nagginda says "the long-distance dynamic soon took its toll."
Nabagereka and Kabaka
Nabagereka and Kabaka

They met and talked, then because of staying in different places, communication became hard, then they met again.

In her memoir, The Nnaabagereka of Buganda Queen Sylvia Nagginda Luswata, which is set to be launched on March 23, Nagginda says "the long-distance dynamic soon took its toll."

Nagginda, who was then staying in the U.S., would later learn that Kabaka was dating someone else.

"We lost touch. I later heard that he was dating someone else," reads the memoir that was ghost-written by Dr. Dennis Sempebwa.

"I honestly didn't feel slighted or passed over. I genuinely wished the best for him. Besides, deep down I really wasn't sure if we were suitable for each other."

But what's meant to be will be.

In 1998, about a year before their wedding, Kabaka upped the game.

"One spring day in 1998, Anne-Loi's husband, Sam Kyewalabye, also a cousin to the Kabaka, called me to say, ‘Ronnie is looking for your number, should I give it to him'? I tried to probe as to why but he just laughed and said, 'Ndowoza kubuzaako' meaning ‘Maybe just to say hello'," Sempebwa writes.

"I said 'yes', although I later learnt that he had already passed it on to the Kabaka. As a Muganda, he couldn't decline the King's request. In fact, he didn't need my permission to give him my number."

They wedded at Namirembe Cathedral on August 27, 1999.

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