Displaced twice by the railway
John Wilson Kidhiki (behind 2nd left) with his family members. The family is set to relocate to pave way for the Standard Gauge Railway project. Photo by Yazid Yolisigira
For John Wilson Kidhiki, life now is bitter sweet. During one of the construction phases of the Uganda Railway, Kidhiki was a young man of 27 years. At the time, his father’s homestead where he stayed with his then young wife Rebecca Mutesi in Bunio, Iganga, was gazetted as part of the land through which the narrow gauge railway of the line between Busembatya and Jinja was to pass.
Kidhiki says the predicament is heart-wrenching. Gladly, the family came to terms with their fate after thorough sensitisation at village level by government officials then. They were compensated and they moved to settle a kilometre away from the initial site of their first homestead.
Having resettled in the same village, not much changed. Their friends, neighbours and livelihood in general remained the same. What the family remembers though, is the impact the metre gauge railway had on the family and the village in general. “Many people got jobs as masons on the railway project, including our father.
Later, whenever my father was away in Iganga Town, he would send us food aboard the train. Waiting to have our goodies thrown off the train was a delightful experience for us as children,” reminisces Joyce Nandego, the 53-year-old first daughter of Kidhiki.
Now, fast forward to 2016, Kidhiki, now 84 years old, finds himself in the same predicament. The Standard Gauge Railway is set to pass through his homestead.
The setting of his homestead in Bunio village, Namalemba Sub-county, Iganga District, is of typical rural setting. The main house, Kidhiki’s humble abode, is surrounded by the houses of his sons and their respective families. I find the old farmer seated in a shade in his compound, flanked by his daughter, Nandego, in conversation.
His face lights up, and the polite daughter offers my colleague and I seats. Dressed in old khaki trousers and a brown shirt, Kidhiki strikes a pose of a highly-organised old man, with a very calm demeanor, which is evident in the calm way he speaks to us during the interview.
For a man his age, you would imagine relocating from the place you have called home for decades would be such an inconvenience, and he does not try to sugarcoat it.
“I was not happy, I thought it was ill-luck on my part, going through the same experience again,” he says of the day the news of the imminent move was broken to him by officials working on the project. Devastated, Kidhiki says he beckoned his sons to go hear what was being said.
His biggest question then was: “Why us again!” he recalls. It is then that the officials working on the project informed him that there was no malice whatsoever. The path through which the railway passes, it turns out, is determined by experts, who use special satellite technology to map the corridor.
Having gone through this process before, the family quite knew how this cookie would crumble; the government values their land, they get compensated and move to a new location. But, their worry was about the time this would be done.
The first time, it had taken six months before the family had been compensated, which was hard on them as it became difficult to resettle the family comfortably. “It was relieving to know that government was going to pay us before the commencement of construction,” says his son Gilbert Kidhiki, a 32-year-old father of four. The community was sensitised about the Standard Gauge project at village level.
Once compensated, Kidhiki plans to build a new house, somewhere in the same village as he can’t see himself moving away to start afresh elsewhere. He will, however, give each of his three sons a fair share and let them move their families where they please, seeing as they are all adult men with children.
Convincing the residents
Although he had made peace with his own situation, Kidhiki, being the Bunio village chairman, had a task of making the rest of the affected people understand what was happening and develop a positive attitude towards the project. This, being a sensitive issue involving land, was not easy and he faced a lot of resistance at the start. “Some people thought I was conniving with the officials of the project to take away their land,” he explains.
However, aware of their worries, Kidhiki narrated to the rest of the affected people about the first metre gauge railway and how his family was moved, but had managed to settle down later. Using his story as a benchmark, he was able to convince the locals to embrace the project, and is still doing the same as some are still hesitant, but he is hopeful that they will soon accept and co-operate.
But Nandego, Kidhiki’s daughter says they are consoled knowing it was not only them affected, but several other families located in the corridor.
John Emoit’s is that other family. Unlike the Kidhikis who are yet to be compensated, Emoits family has been compensated and are putting finishing touches to their soon-to-be new house, found a stone throw away from their old house due for demolition.
According to David Mugabe, the Standard Gauge Railway project spokesperson, this is because the two districts are at different phases in the land acquisition process.
“Emoit is a resident of Amony B village in Tororo District. This village is where the railway is starting, and most of the residents have already been compensated, unlike in Iganga where compensation is yet to begin,” he explains.
“My land was surveyed and I was declared one of the affected people in February this year. I was paid Shs147 million for 1.5 acres of land in March,” reveals Emoit. Emoit has since built a four bedroom house for his family, rentals for his two sons and a commercial structure in the neighbouring trading centre.
Compensation, the hard task
Nathan Epudu, the station manager of Tororo, says getting the people to understand the Standard Gauge Railway project as a necessary government project with a high stake for the country was not easy.
“You know land is a sensitive issue. Telling the people to cooperate with just a promise of compensation was difficult in the start,” he explains.
According to him, there were many negative rumours spreading around villages that the affected people were going to lose their land, which made many people paranoid. “It took us more than a month to convince the residents that compensation was going to be done in the shortest time possible,” he says.
When compensation started, the problem stopped being about refusal to corporate, and became the overzealous nature of some affected people. “Even after bringing in professional valuers, some residents started coming up with lies just so they are paid more than their land is worth,” he reveals. To this end, some of the residents took to trickery, planting crops overnight just so the valuers declare them worth more money.
