The NUP President Robert Kagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine is on the verge of eviction from his Magere homeland after a certain woman identified as Nakamatte came out to claim ownership of the land housing over 2000 residents.
Through her lawyers of Kajeke, Maguru, and Co Advocates, Ms. Nakamatte on various dates in June 2020 sued all the current occupants of the one-square kilometer (640-acre) mile land in Magere, Wakiso District, seeking, among others, declaratory orders for vacant possession of the suit land.
Ms Nakamatte, therefore, wants court to cancel all titles on the suit land so that she can repossess the property she claims to have inherited from her great grandfather, Akula Ssematimba. She also wants the defendants to compensate her for any losses incurred.
The case puts at stake the ownership of land in the area by Kyagulanyi, also the National Unity Platform (NUP) party, and other residents that the village chairperson, Mr Yekosofat Makubuya, estimates to number 2,000.
The people affected by the suits range from senior political leaders, military officers and top corporates. There also major religious institutions and an entertainment centre on the land.
By the time Ms Nakamatte filed the case in June 2020, the government had through the ministry of Lands, among others, halted all land transactions and evictions during the national lockdown period. This was because movement was hard and many people were not working besides being faced with hardships induced by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The law
Fraud, the ground for Ms Nakamatte’s suit, is any act done by an individual to deny another their rights or claim of rights in relation to land, city lawyer Noah Muwanguzi said.
One of the underlying reasons for the surge in land conflicts is the weakness or failure of existing land tenure systems, and President Museveni about a fortnight ago asked newly-elected lawmakers to help him fix the problem once and for all.
Lawyer Muwanguzi agreed that some of the land laws are obsolete.
“Uganda still relies on some laws inherited from our colonial masters,” he said, adding: “Recent reforms in our land laws have not been able to adequately address some of the challenges facing the peculiar nature of our land tenure. For example, there are legal gaps in the law relating to customary ownership of land.”
It should be noted that this is not the first time Bobi Wine facees such land sagas. In 2017 part of his one love beach in Busabala was graded by the Buganda officials as they claimed that he had acquired over one and half acres of land illegally.
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