Did the Ogik family fake court orders to grab 6,400-acre Lamwo land?

Mr Aldo Opira, a resident of Ngomoromo village, Ngomoromo parish, Lokung Sub County in Lamwo District pulls his face with a defeating sob and slumps his back against a plastic chair as he explains how his family of nine were forced out of their 170-acre piece of land by armed UPDF personnel. 

Mr Opira, also the chairperson of the Pajere clan settled in Ngomoromo, a parish on the margins of the Uganda-South Sudan border, says 13 acres of immature food crops were slashed down by the soldiers who supervised the erection of a fence that stretches for about 4km in length. 

Speaking from Lamwo District headquarters, from where they had delivered a petition to the district authorities challenging the army deployment on the land and their forcible eviction, Mr Opira said that hundreds of people have so far been displaced as a result of the wrangle.   

“We are aggrieved and we want your office (district authorities) to intervene and cause a stoppage to this kind of thing. The family now want to chase us from the land forcefully, they even conditioned us to rent the land from them at Shs80,000 per acre to grow crops there,”  he said.

According to Mr Opira, the family has continued to illegally use security personnel  to protect their interest in the land despite a court ruling and State House instruction that the family should negotiate with them. 

“This is to draw the attention of the district leadership to this wave of development and henceforth investigate the matter and cause peace and stability to prevail, we seek the protection of our customary farmland, being our only ancestral source of livelihood since the 1920s,” the petition reads in part. 

They accuse Kampala-based lawyer Jude Ogik, Mr Alfred Okema and his wife Ms Emily Okema of faking ownership of the land and causing the illegal eviction of several people. 

In the petition dated January 13, 2024, the locals, majorly members of the Pajere clan, asked the district authorities to cause the family to cease evicting people from the disputed  land as well as stop further developments including fencing and construction of the land. 

“No activity should continue on the land by both parties until the committee is sent to come on the ground for further investigations. We want our ownership validated and the family to stop evicting, threatening, arresting our people,” it stated. 

 Monitor has established that the community of Ngomoromo are currently living in fear of eviction due to the action of illegally deployed soldiers on the contested land. 

The contested land is home to approximately 13,000 households who are members of 11 clans of Lamogi, Pubala, Pawor, Ayugi, Pajele, Palwo, Pocii, Pocwa, Pagot, Pacwera and Panyanyiri.  

The clans are settled in 10 villages: Ngomoromo, Limur, Okee, Paikongo, Akelikongo North, Gana, Apuk, Alotonekonga, Yoke and Lakwala West, spread across three parishes of Ngomoromo, Licwa and Pawor West in Lokung Sub County. 

Mr Alfonse Okwera, a resident, says: “Right now we have nowhere to grow crops, and once you step on the land, they call the RDC and he dispatches soldiers who come on the ground from Ngomoromo army barracks to assault us.”

Mr Michael Okot, a resident of Okee village in Ngomoromo Parish, says in recent weeks, several efforts have been made by Mr Ogik and family to  evict them. 

“The family convene random meetings with locals and unfamiliar people claiming to be from the State House to tell people to leave the land or face forceful eviction, in the meetings, they only select a few community members, especially elders whom they hope to bully into accepting their threats,” Ok ot says. 

“Those meetings are heavily guarded, they have also just finished the construction of a permanent building in the contested land including planting bananas as proof of settlement and ownership contrary to the recommendation of the State House Anti-Corruption Unit,” he adds. 

In 2010, Pajere clan members represented by Mr Okwany Olutu, Enosi Lulengo and David Odwar sued Ms Vitorina Lakang, Mr Ogik and Okema’s mother seeking a declaration of ownership of the disputed land then measuring 1,000 acres situated in Yoke and Ngomoromo villages, Licwa Parish, Lokung Sub-County, Lamwo District.

They also sought the court’s order for vacant possession and a permanent injunction restraining Ms Lakang and her family from further interference with the land. 

Court heard that Ms Lakang fled to exile in Sudan during the regime of President Idi Amin in 1974 together with her husband, the  late Bwaro Lacara (Mr Olutu’s brother).

According to court documents seen by this newspaper, Ms Lakang and her husband returned to Uganda in 1979 after the overthrow of Idi Amin but headed straight to Kampala where they lived until 2007. 

It is claimed by residents that when they returned from Kampala in 2007, Ms Lakang was given a one-acre piece of land to plant rice, but she later encroached on other areas of  land and started intimidating residents with the help of security personnel.

The aggrieved residents petitioned court but lost the case on December 15, 2017. The residents allege that bribery of judicial officers led to the dismissal  of their case. 

“We then sat down as victims and decided to petition the Anti-Corruption Unit of the State House to investigate the matter including how the case was being mishandled and the credibility of their claims over the land,” Mr Okot said. 

In March 2019, the locals (Pajere community) registered a complaint of false claims of ownership of part of the Pajele community land against Mr Ogik and his family (Lamwo/CRB: 087/2019) at Lamwo Central Police Station. 

However,  police officers from Lamwo CPS reportedly stopped the investigations after Mr Ojik and his family presented a court order to evict the thousands of locals settled on the disputed land. 

The court order had purportedly been issued in 2017 by Kitgum’s Chief Magistrate’s Court following a December 2017 civil suit ruling.

‘Fraudulent papers’
A month after Lamwo police dropped the investigations, the State House Anti-Corruption Unit summoned the file for further management (fresh investigations) after the complainants petitioned it. 

A team of three investigators from CID Headquarters led by Mr Justus Twinamasiko was assigned by the State House’s unit to kick off the investigations.  

On March 21, 2021, they were dispatched to Kitgum and Lamwo districts to conduct their operations.  

A source at the SHAC unit told this newspaper on condition of anonymity that the team was tasked to thoroughly investigate the alleged forgery and utterance of false documents by Mr Ogik and others to claim ownership of the contested land.

In separate documents including an application to the Uganda Land Commission to acquire a title for the contested land that Sunday Monitor has seen, Mr Ogik is identified as one of the sons of Ms Lakang and was attempting to register the land under Ngomoromo Mixed Farm.

The investigators met with Kitgum District authorities to validate certain documents of claim that the family submitted including a lease offer for the farm dated August 15, 2006, and an application for land title by Ngomoromo Mixed Farm Ltd dated November 9, 1994. 

The team also sought to validate a letter from the office of the Prime Minister addressed to the Minister of Lands dated July 21, 1994, introducing Ms Margret Abalo as director of Ngomoromo Mixed Farm Enterprises. 

Certified (original) copies of documents from Chief Magistrate’s Court Kitgum including notice of motion and affidavit of 2015 (civil suit No. 041 of 2014), the amended plaint at Kitgum civil No. 041 of 2014 (Formally civil suit No. 025 of 2010 at Gulu High Court) dated February 29, 2016, summary of evidence of Kitgum civil suit and the respondents submission on the application with no number, of 2017, were also sourced, the source stated. 

“Whereas the family went ahead to evict locals based on an order reportedly issued by the Kitgum Magistrates’ Court on December 18, 2017, the investigators found no records in the Chief Magistrates Court.” 

Meanwhile, findings by the State House Anti-Corruption Unit issued on April 8, 2021 and signed by Mr Thomas Tanga Ogema, the head of investigations at State House Anti-Corruption Unit, concluded that documents tendered by Mr Ogik and family to prove ownership over the land were fake. 

“Based on the evidence so far gathered the persons whose names appear on the purported inspection reports and claiming that they participated in the inspection of the said land in question, had long died at the time of the purported inspection day of July, 1990. This is therefore a possible criminal act by the suspects.” 

The document (Inspection report), appears to have been made and filled by one person. The purported court order dated December 18, 2017, has been disowned by Kitgum Court and lawyer of Pajere Clan. 

“Use of false documents, both in court and outside court by Ogik and others, to claim communal land owned by the Pajele clan, may attract charges of criminal trespass, making false documents and uttering false documents against the suspects,”

Mr Ogema wrote. 
“As we conclude the remaining areas of inquiries, the case file can be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions for legal guidance on the evidence so far gathered, he stated. 

The investigators questioned circumstances under which the name of  Mr Obura, who died in 1982, and that of Mr Okello Aguma, who denied signing and participating in the inspection of the land in question, were added to the list of witnesses to the land inspection conducted in 1994. 

“Mr Okello Aguma is still alive and when we interrogated him, he revealed that he never participated in the inspection exercise and that his signature on the alleged documents in the family’s custody was a forgery,” the document stated. 

When they traced Mr Charles Dalton Opwonya, formerly a lawyer representing the locals, he remarked that he did not know about any ruling about the said suit and that he did not appear before Mr John Paul Obuya, the Grade  One Magistrate of Kitgum as alleged in the disputed court order dated December 18, 2017, the source stated. 

Mr Opwonya said that the order is false and should be disregarded since it did not indicate the party which has drawn the order or extracted it and that the suit had already been amended by the time this order was issued, to remove the deceased parties like Mr Okwany Olutu. 

Sunday Monitor spoke to one of the officers (investigators) who said they traced in vain from the registry at the Chief Magistrate’s Court Kitgum, the original files of High Court Gulu for civil suit No. 025/2010, civil suit No. 41/2014 together with Misc. Appl. No. 22/2017. 

“It was even interesting when we found that the persons purported to have been present during the inspection of the land in question and appended their signatures on the report under paragraph (k) did not exist at the time as they had passed on,” the source said. 

The land inspection document, copies of which the source showed us, detailed the names of Mr Lodyakmoi Opio (a neighbour), Mr Okot Doke - Sub county chief, Mr Matayo Ongom and an elder Olii. 

Whereas Lodyakmoi died in 1983, he was established, during the investigations, to be from Olebi Parish which does not neighbour Lucwa Parish and Mr Okot Doke died in Jinja in 1988, during Alice Lakwena rebellion. 

“His biological son Nyeko George is now the current LC3 chairperson of Lamwo Town Council. He told us that his father served as the sub-county chief for Lokung around 1973 and later in various places before he retired in 1985 to join Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement,”  he said. 

According to him, other witnesses the family listed included Mr Dolteo Obura and Mr Alfred Okello Aguma, among others. 

In an interview, Mr Ogik denied the allegations of forgery stating that the   documents in question were verified by the court and were passed to them by their late mother. 

“My mother processed all those papers (title) while we were still young and she just handed them over to us, but to soil my name everywhere that I forged court orders and land papers is defamatory of those people, I have been cleared everywhere that my papers are genuine. I have never forged any papers.” 

Asked about the State House report that marked the land documents as fake, Mr Ogik claimed that  the report was manipulated by a State House official who is related to the community members. 

“They had one of their sons named Ocaya, the one who manipulated the unit and worked to make sure that these people’s agenda were met. The people who gave their position in the report (quoted as former leaders and land officials in the 1990s), did not witness or participate in the exercise, instead the right people were deliberately left out,” he said. 

“They are only doing forum shopping. After failing in court, they ran to the State House and after they failed, they are looking at the petition to save them, but that is not how things work, and this hurts, instead of them being formal,” he added. 

Mr Ogik also stated that the State House Anti-Corruption Unit had advised the aggrieved locals to go to court to settle the matter. 

The land in question is a communal land located at Ngomoromo village, close to South Sudan Border, Licwa parish, Lokung Sub-county, in Lamwo District. It  is said to have been occupied by the indigenous people of the Pajere clan. 

In their petition, the locals accused the Lamwo Deputy RDC, Mr Sabastian Oguti, of meddling in the wrangle and ordering the deployment of armed UPDF soldiers who now guard the land, which has been fenced after some residents were evicted. 

“We would also like to expressly draw your attention to the unwarranted act of the Deputy Resident District Commissioner of Lamwo, over his participation and collaboration with the land grabbers to unlawfully and fraudulently acquire our customary land, measuring more than 10 square miles,” the residents  state in their petition.

This publication  saw a document reportedly authorised by Mr Sebastian Oguti, the Lamwo deputy RDC, who the aggrieved landowners accused of meddling in the wrangle by causing army deployment on the disputed land in favour of the family. 

In the letter addressed to State House Anti-Corruption Unite dated December 20, 2023, Mr Oguti advised SHACU to leave the locals (aggrieved party) to seek redress in court or let another government agency to carry out investigations  since they had rejected resolutions of separate meetings held on October 5, 2022, and January 4, 2023. 

“Whereas the Pajere clan members claim that there are court decisions in their favour, verification with the High Court at Gulu and the Chief Magistrate’s Court at Kitgum confirmed that the claim is false. At the end of the meeting, it was observed and agreed that the dispute raises questions which can only be answered in courts of law,” Mr Oguti advised. 

Efforts to get comment from the police and the army were futile by press time.