UGANDA, Kampala | Real Muloodi News | Sam Mayanja, Uganda’s State Minister for Lands, has urged ‘bibanja’ holders to rise and march against land grabbers, naming his ministry the critical cause of land conflicts and evictions.
He made these remarks while meeting with members of families that had lost their land to “powerful persons” who had obtained freehold titles on top of other people’s leases, and were now evicting them by employing police and the military.
All of this follows the Minister’s discovery of alarming situations involving Lands Ministry officials conniving with influential persons to execute double titling.
The affected families accused certain Lands Ministry personnel of conniving with land grabbers and providing paperwork against the bibanja holders, leaving them with little control over their land.
“Why would you allow ‘foreigners’ with guns to take your land as you look on? If the DPC or the RDC doesn’t act, can’t you come with your drums and sound them in front of parliament? You think nothing can be done?” Mayanja asked.
Thus, he denounced his ministry’s endemic ineptitude and corruption, admitting that certain officials are participating in the false issuance of freehold and lease titles.
“The Ministry, our own Ministry, which is supposed to keep our records, in connivance, they issued out freehold titles on top of leasehold,” said Mayanja.
Mayanja also chastised court personnel who make orders to unjustly evict people to preserve the interests of land grabbers, a seemingly unending practice.
“How can we claim to be a democracy when courts are still issuing such [eviction] orders! Something is wrong! We must renew ourselves!” he said.
The minister’s comments come a few weeks after Buganda’s Katikiro, Charles Peter Mayiga, voiced his concerns on Salt TV about duplicate titling by land authorities, citing corrupt police and judicial institutions as significant causes of land disputes in Uganda. He claims that land matters have gone unresolved for more than ten years in the courts due to corruption in the courts of law.
The Katikkiro emphasised that those with money and influence had somehow seized control of land titling powers.
“If you go to the land office with money, you can easily get a title in one day on someone else’s land. This is what must be solved instead of attacking the Mailo tenure system,” Mayiga said.
He added, “If we can expedite political cases, why can’t we do the same on land cases? Why is the police land unit underfunded?”
Mayiga and Mayanja believe that the administration must clean its house before discussing land reforms.
The Buganda land issue has taken rounds in public discourse in recent years, with a few, notably Minister Mayanja and President Museveni, seeking to abolish the mailo tenure system.
While Mayanja is commonly seen as an activist of the anti-Mailo movement, his latest statements suggest that everyone involved can do something to alleviate Uganda’s land crisis utilising current laws and land tenures.
Buganda has often urged that, in addition to combatting corruption and ineptitude in land offices, police, and courts of law, the government should battle land fraudsters and separate politics from land administration.
“I hear people obsessed about mailo land as being the problem. This is not true, we just need to address the issues mentioned above,” Mayiga said.
“For example, people evicting others are using guns owned by government. Why don’t we start by identifying and prosecuting those people that wrongly use government firearms,” he wondered.
The Buganda administration has also spoken out against district land boards and the Uganda Land Commission (ULC) for unlawfully awarding freehold titles on Kabaka’s land. Several titles are being now being cancelled as a step in rectifying the situation.
Mayanja, therefore, pushes bibanja holders to employ the indigenous ‘Gwangamujje’ community strategy of mobilisation to challenge parliament and police, encouraging landowners to vigorously defend their land.
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