An African prince who appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show this week has ties to Bermuda.

Amodi K. Nyabongo, the son of an Ugandan prince and a Bermudian mother, was recently part of a panel of princes discussing growing up as royalty.

Mr. Nyabongo's mother, Ada, was born in Bermuda and has returned to the Island to retire.

A former schoolteacher, Mrs. Nyabongo told The Royal Gazette that her son called her on Sunday to tell her the top television talk show would be aired on Monday but she did not think it would be on because of the Olympics coverage.

"So I didn't call any of my family to tell them about it,'' Mrs. Nyabongo explained. "I went over to Cyril Packwood's, Amodi's godfather, home to watch the show and when I got home my answering machine was lit up.'' Mr. Nyabongo, a New York City Police Department helicopter pilot, told Oprah that his parents met at a church in Brooklyn, New York.

"We met in a church,'' Mrs. Nyabongo recalled. "He came to give a speech.'' She and Akiki Nyabongo married in Brooklyn on September 10, 1955.

"He was a prince and his brother was a king of Toro which is one of the four kingdoms in Uganda,'' Mrs. Nyabongo said.

But she laughed at suggestions that she was a princess upon her marriage and explained that African royalty did not operate in the same manner as European royalty.

"We had African names,'' Mrs. Nyabongo explained. "People would just recognise the names as having royal heritage.'' Her first trip to Africa, she said, was in 1972 and she described Uganda as a beautiful country.

She said her son, who also has Bermudian status, had visited Uganda and Bermuda several times.

"The last time he was down here was last May,'' Mrs. Nyabongo said.

"Whenever he comes down he just hops on a cycle and takes off.'' She added that her son had no official duties in Uganda, but she said she thought he would like to return there.

Mr. Nyabongo pointed out to Oprah that he and the other princes on her panel, in addition to being royalty, were just regular people.

During the show he agreed with the other princes that being royal made it difficult to be taken seriously.

And dressed in a white kanzu -- a plain long white garment with embroidery around the neck -- Mr. Nyabongo refuted Oprah's suggestion that royals were snobs.

"We can't speak for (all of) them,'' he said, "but anybody can be a snob or immature''.

And he added that his childhood was different from the other European princes on Oprah's panel.

"My experience has been different,'' he said, "being raised in Brooklyn, walking to school and having to slug it out because they (children) would tease me about my name. That's where I got my grounding.'' Mr. Nyabongo, who lives in Brooklyn is a Police pilot with the New York City Police Department.

He has a bachelor degree from Tuskegee University and is working on his Master's degree from Long Island University.

While admitting that he felt privileged, Mr. Nyabongo said, he did not worry about the negative things that came with being royal.

"I don't think about what's going to happen bad next,'' he said. "I think, okay, that project is out of the way, what can I do next. At the end of the road, it's this long list of projects that you can do.'' When asked if being royal meant he was wealthy, he told Oprah that true wealth came from the heart.

"Wealth is in your heart,'' Prince Nyabongo stressed. "That's where real wealth is.'' AFRICAN ROYALTY -- Ada Nyabongo holds a photograph of her son Amodi who was on the Oprah Winfrey Show this week to discuss his life as an African prince.

BERMUDIAN BDA