UGANDA, Mukono | Real Muloodi News | Over 2,000 Mukono residents have petitioned President Museveni to intervene in stopping Nicholas Kabagambe from evicting them and destroying their properties.
The locals from Makukuba, Nkulagirire, and Kaabulo villages in Nabbale Sub-County also petitioned the Minister of Lands and Urban Development, Judith Nabakooba over the same matter.
The residents have accused Kabagambe of tormenting them since 2019 with the help of security personnel. Kabagambe allegedly acquired the land, which measures over 680 acres, from the family of the late Andrew Guludene.
Andrew Guluddene had obtained a 49-year lease on the land from Uganda Land Commission in 1980, when the land was under the administration of the government having been confiscated by the Milton Obote government from Buganda in 1966.
When the land was returned to Buganda in 1993, Guluddene took his lease title to Buganda Land Board in 2001 for variation and started paying annual ground rent to Buganda Land Board. After Guluddene death, Kabagambe acquired the land from Guluddene’s children.
With the help of officials at the Mukono District land offices, Kabagambe secured a freehold title on the land, and residents were told to leave or be forced to do so.
Attacks on Residents
Things got bloody when a resident, Hakim Ssendagire, was shot in the leg as he was trying to save his cows from unknown “hooligans” who were trying to confiscate them from his 70-acre kibanja.
Ssendagire’s attackers, allegedly from Kabagambe’s cattle farm in the area, cut down over 1,000 trees on his kibanja, poisoned 20 cows, and killed 200 goats on his farm.
Although Ssendagire survived the attack, he limps up to date.
The then Lands Minister, Beti Kamya, wrote to the RDC of Mukono imploring him to stop the brutality and evictions.
However, in March 2023, the residents were attacked again by people claiming to work for Kabagambe. They destroyed their crops, including banana plantations, coffee, eucalyptus trees, and sugarcanes.
Available records show that the land under contention is part of Kabaka’s 350 square miles of the land estate, which was returned to Buganda in 1993.
Buganda Land Board’s Perspective
The spokesperson of Buganda Land Board (BLB), Denis Bugaya, confirmed that it is Kabaka’s land.
He explained that when some of the residents reached out, the board immediately petitioned the Ministry of Lands to cancel Kabagambe’s land title because it was acquired illegally.
Bugaya added that no one can obtain a freehold title on top of Kabaka’s official mailo.
He noted that it was wrong for Mukono District to offer such a title to someone else when they knew that this was Kabaka’s land.
However, Kabagambe insists that the land belongs to him because he acquired it legally and that no one will stop him from utilising his land.
Fraudulent Transfer of Freehold Title
It is alleged that when Guluddene died, his children, George Mulindwa, Robert Sebidde, Lilian Nakintu Guludene, and Mercy Guludene, colluded with Nicholas Kabagambe and fraudulently changed the tenure of his title from leasehold to freehold.
They purportedly sold the “fraudulent” freehold title to Kabagambe.
Immediately after the illegal freehold title was transferred to Kabagambe, he started to violently evict the bibanja holders on the land, destroying their property and crops, and injuring many in the process.
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