Brutal Lusanja eviction: Who is telling the truth?

On the morning of Tuesday, October 16, President Museveni paid an impromptu visit to Sekanyonyi Village, Kawempe Division, Kampala District, to assess the havoc caused by court bailiffs in what was meant to be an eviction of squatters on a 9.5 acre piece of land claimed by businessman Medard Kiconco.

Kiconco is the proprietor of Lexman Limited, a firm involved in civil, electrical and water engineering works. The firm recently ventured into the production of angle bars and other building materials at the industrial park adjacent to the land in dispute.
Addressing the evicted and others in attendance, Mr Museveni said in Luganda: “Sagala kutomera” (I don’t want to be taken for a ride).

But to Henry Ssejjemba, the Sekanyonyi Village chairperson, the President was in the end taken for a ride.
“They lied to him that 350 houses (had been razed). The elected leaders of the affected area were not present and he listened to one side. Let him return and listen to the other,” Mr Ssejjemba says.

His comments are perhaps the biggest pointer to the confusion surrounding an eviction that took place in Sekanyonyi in Kampala, but is assumed to have taken place in Lusanja in Wakiso.

Ownership
The land in dispute is part of a chunk of about 85 acres that the late Paul Bitarabeho bought in 1978 from the late mother of King Mwanga, Namasole Bagalaayeze Lunkusu. He set up a farm that stretched from Mpererwe in Kampala to Lusanja and Kitetikka villages in Wakiso.

Some of the land in Mpererwe was sold to the defunct Kampala City Council (KCC), which gazetted it in 1996 as a landfill for garbage disposal. That sale proved catastrophic. With time, effluent from the landfill permeated the wetlands and pastures, forcing the family to close the farm.

“With the farm closed, that huge tract of land was left unattended to. People started settling on it. Some claimed to have bought the land. They first encroached on the land in Lusanja and Kitetikka. When those 75 acres got occupied, they started on the 9.5 acres, which they are fighting for now,” Mr Ssejjemba says.

It is difficult to establish who sold the land or allowed the squatters to settle on it. Samuel Kibuuka, the Lusanja Village chairperson, says it was sold by Crisper Bitarabeho, a sister to Paul Katabazai Bitarabeho, the administrator of the estate of the late Paul Bitarabeho, but Kiconco’s lawyer, George Muhangi, is quick to dismiss this.

“When we appeared in the Resident District Commissioner (RDC)’s office in Kasangati [Wakiso District] with all those squatters, she asked all those who claimed to have bought land from her to come up, but none did,” he says.

He instead accused Kibuuka of having colluded with a former employee of the Bitarabehos, one Abubaker Ssekitto, to sell the land.
“He worked with Baker [Abubaker Ssekitto] to fraudulently sell land that did not exist. Some of the agreements that they have bear the name “Baker” yet he never had even a single plot,” Muhangi says.

Though Kibuuka denied being part of the problem, this newspaper has seen several documents that show that he was active is signing agreements for sales, including those that were for land outside his jurisdiction.
In one case, he sent a handwritten note to Ssejjemba owning up to having made an agreement for land in Sekanyonyi.

“There was a mistake when Ssekitto was selling his land in your area. I made Richard Tamale’s agreement indicating that the land was in Lusanja, yet it is in Ssekanyonyi. Sir, I am requesting you to help him rectify that anomaly,” the chit reads in parts.
At the start of 2014, Paul Katabazi Bitarabeho started making efforts to save the remaining 9.5 acres. First he went to the State House’s Directorate of Land Matters and later filed a suit against 17 people for criminal trespass seeking, among others, an order for them to vacate.

On October 30, 2017 the High Court directed the 17 to file written statements of defense within 14 days lest court proceed with the case. Some of the respondents wrote to the Sekanyonyi LCs seeking audience with Bitarabeho, a request he did not honour.

However, on December 15, 2014, the Land Division of the High Court issued an order that the status quo be maintained. There would be no selling, construction, further encroachment or demolition of buildings. Well, Bitarabeho was to later sell to Kiconco, bibanja owners continued to construct and other squatters continued to arrive.

Politics

Kiconco has for quite some time now been complaining about political interference. In televised comments that he made on September 9, 2016, he claimed that some politicians were barring the police from executing court orders and arresting criminals.
Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine and ministers Seninde and Persis Namuganza (State minister for Lands) are top on that list.

“These MPs, these ministers, it is not even their area. Seninde and Kyagulanyi are for Wakiso, while our land is in Kampala. You wonder how they come in,” Muhangi says.
Sejjemba accuses Kagulanyi of conflict of interest.
“When I see Kyagulanyi calling for justice yet his brother, Michael Mukwaya, alias Mickie Wine, is one of those who was compensated, but has since turned around to say he was not, I get surprised,” Ssejjemba says.
Ssejjemba also accused minister Seninde of lying to the President.

“They convened a meeting in Mpererwe in Kampala, but there was no official from Mpererwe. They deceived the President that they were in Lusanja in Wakiso yet the area is in Kampala,” he says.
It was not possible to talk to Kyagulanyi or Minister Namuganza for this article by press time, but Seninde was unapologetic.
“Whether the land is in Wakiso, Karamoja or Kampala is not an issue. These are Ugandans. I am a minister of Uganda and when I go to Parliament, I legislate for Uganda. The issue is the manner in which the eviction was carried out,” she said.

She insists that the eviction was in contravention of provisions of the Land (Amendment Act 2010), which required the evictees to be notified and for a judge to visit the location.
Section 32(A), subsections 1 to 3 of the Act provides that bonafide occupants can only be evicted for nonpayment of ground rent and that “when making an order for eviction, the court shall state in the order, the date, being not less than six months after the date of the order”, but Muhangi insists that the evictees were not bonafide occupants and, therefore, not entitled to enjoy those provisions of the law.

Shortly after appearing before the Justice Catherine Bamugemereire-led commission of inquiry into land matters, Kiconco insisted that the eviction was carried long after the six-month period stipulated in the law.
Who is telling the truth? The politicians or the businessman? Both can be very mean when votes in the case of the former and money in the case of the latter are at stake. And they are in this case.

What some stakeholders say ...

Sharon Akugizibwe, victim. “We have lived on this land for the past four years but we were told the land does not belong to us and we were forcefully evicted, rendering us homeless and our property stolen.”

George Muhangi, Medard Kiconco’s lawyer. “These MPs, these ministers, it is not even their area. Seninde and Kyagulanyi are for Wakiso, while our land is in Kampala. You wonder how they come in.”

Rosemary Seninde, State minister for Primary Education. “Whether the land is in Wakiso, Karamoja or Kampala is not an issue. ... The issue is the manner in which the eviction was carried out.”