An old character model sheet for Through Death & Love, from 1999.
Please see the description for this piece for background info on this story.

So, this will probably upset a few people... but back when the story was still connected to the TLK universe, in order for the whole thing to work, Simba had to die.

Oh, and Nala dies, too.

The idea was that Simba lost his kingship to a young challenger from outside the pride, and Nala, in order save the cub she carried in her womb (because new leader to a pride always kills off all the offspring of the deposed leader), ran away carrying injuries, and died after giving birth (if you think this is grim, see the events captured in Beauty & the Beasts that inspired this tale).

The orphaned cub would be found and raised by the mother leopard, and after her mate's vengeful war decimated the lion pride, the cub would return to the pride to lead the lions into a new way of life.

In retrospect, of course, none of this would have worked (with the way Disney anthropomorphizes their animal characters). Just the awkward infancy phase of the story.

Anyway, the lion leader (or king, I guess, hurr) named Sadidi was later renamed Kudura (Swahili for "Power") in later iterations of the story, up until the last rewrite, where he was once again renamed... he's currently named Amandla (Zulu for "Power"), though I am not fully settled on this yet, so that's subject to further change.

Simba's role was handed off to a pair of lion leaders in the later iterations of the story - Inkosi (Zulu, "King") and Malusi (Zulu, "Shepherd").