In 1985 Anselm Mukasa (not real name) purchased a hill at a place called Ziranumbu overlooking Lake Victoria as security against a rainy day.
At the time of purchase, the hill was an outback without a single occupant but when rumours started flying around 2005 that the government was going to upgrade the main road passing through the area, the value of the land spiked attracting land brokers, developers and claimants for bibanja on other people’ land.,
Although the High Court held that the land was empty when Mukasa bought it, many people forged documents to show that they were bibanja holders from the original owner who has long been dead.

This kind of malpractice raises the question: What is a kibanja? The term kibanja or bibanja (more than one) has/have an ordinary and statutory meaning. In its ordinary meaning, the term refers to a patch of land to which the Busulu and Envujjo Law of 1927 attached a bundle of rights and obligations.

Under section 8 of the above law, everybody had a right to live on the land, but only with the permission of the owner who could not deny a person the right to come on his land. This right of occupation was balanced by an obligation on the part of the kibanja owner to respect the owner of the land.
The boundaries of a kibanja were marked by the planting of a plant known as oluwanyi. Once this was done, the chief of the area would witness these boundaries and officially receive the kibanja owner as a resident in the community after the kibanja-owner paid what was known as a kanzu.

Once a person was accepted as cited above, he could only lose his kibanja if he abandoned it or failed to pay rent. Even then, the land owner could not evict him summarily; he had to take the defaulter to a gombolola court, which would give him two years notice to make good his default. The defaulter could only be evicted under a court order after failing to comply with the notice.
There were two types of a kibanja under the Busuulu and Envujjo Law, namely domestic and economic. A domestic kibanja measured not more than one acre or big enough to contain a pit-latrine, which had to be located at least 10 feet from the house, a stand (akatandaalo) for drying food-related items, a garden for growing food for domestic consumption, a compound (oluggya) and a house.

A domestic kibanja was an interest in land and it could be inherited, but a kibanja owner was not allowed to sell it without the consent of the land owner. An owner of a domestic kibanja was allowed to cultivate cash crops on up to one acre without the authority of the owner, but his interest was limited to crops. Beyond the one acre, permission of the owner of the land was required. This is what was known as economic kibanja.

In 1965, the Buganda Economic Commission, carried out a census which revealed that there were only 220,000 bibanja-holders, majority of whom were from a neighbouring country. Its recommendation to convert the domestic kibanja into a titled interest was overtaken by the events of 1966 - abolition of the Buganda government.
All the laws relating to land were abolished by the military regime, which led to the anarchy we see now in the administration of land.
A review of the land laws will bring back sanity in the sector. The idea that abolishing mailo land will solve our land problems is not borne out by its history.

Mr Mulira is a lawyer.
peter.mulira89@gmail.com