Former minister Nantaba in bitter land row with neighbours

Chaos erupted in Ndeeba village, Kayunga Town Council in Kayunga District after residents and former state minister for ICT, Ida Nantaba, were engaged in a bitter brawl over land.

The irate residents accused their neighbor, Ms Nantaba, of razing their property and crops as well as grabbing pieces of their land during the process of grading her land in preparation to construct a perimeter fence on it.

Ms Nantaba the Kayunga District woman MP, a born of the area is constructing a house for her aging mother Ms Rachael Naluwooza.

According to Mr Frank Kanamwangi, the Asoni village chairman, Ms Nantaba hired a grader to level her two- acre piece of land but in the process, crops and other property that included a toilet belonging to her neighbor, Mr Isa Matovu was razed down.

 Mr Matovu was left stranded on where his family members and himself would answer nature’s call from.

However, Ms Nantaba claimed she had given him money earlier as compensation for him to remove the toilet, something Mr Matovu denied.

Crops such as coffee, bananas, beans, cassava, jack fruit trees and others were razed down by the grader, something that infuriated residents.

“As the grader was razing down crops and other properties, I went and reported the matter to Kayunga police station, which prompted officers to stop the grader from going ahead with the work,” Mr Kanamwangi explained.

He said that, however, instead of apologizing for the destruction done on their property, Ms Nantaba instead accused her neighbours of fighting her all the time.

“I was grading my land. Those crops that were destroyed by the grader are not a big issue. You are just fighting me,” Ms Nantaba told residents.

Ms Nantaba’s remarks angered the area LCI chairman and residents, who responded by accusing the former minister of hoodwinking residents for long that she was against land grabbing.

“You have become popular on claims of fighting land grabbers but you have been just deceiving us,” Ms Sarah Nawagi told Ms Nantaba.

This resulted into a bitter verbal exchange between Ms Nantaba and residents.

Ms Nantaba and Mr Kanamwangi nearly exchanged fists, prompting the former to call her Special Forces Command (SFC) guards, who arrived and restrained Ms Nantaba from fighting.

Commenting on the matter, Ms Nantaba accused her neighbour’s of harbouring ill motives and plotting her political downfall.

“This is just political witch hunt,” she said.

 The Kayunga District police commander, Mr Felix Mugizi, declined to comment on the matter but a police source that did not want to be named in the this story because he’s not authorized to talk to journalists, said a file on the matter had been opened up.

“We have asked the complainants to come and make statements. We shall investigate the matter,” a police source said.