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Attack on Kabaka
The attacks on the monarchy come at a time when, in an unprecedented move, a Kampala lawyer is suing the Kabaka over alleged attempts to grab land. The lawyer, Hassan Male Mabirizi, in fact has two cases against the Kabaka in court.
In one suit filed last year, Mabirizi wants court to declare that the Kabaka is not the landlord of Buganda land but only a trustee. In another more recent suit filed this April, Mabirizi is seeking a temporary injunction to stop Buganda Land Board from issuing lease titles to bonafide squatters on the Kabaka’s land, often called bibanja holders.
Asked why he has taken such bold moves to sue the Kabaka, Mabirizi says the Buganda Land Board and officials of the Kabaka’s government have recently become too high-handed in handling land matters in the kingdom. He says many people; including prominent politicians, feel the pain but fear to take on Mengo.
“Privately they call me and encourage me in these lawsuits because of the cries they are getting from their people,” he says.
The Kabaka is also battling another court case related to land, this time filed by his relatives who accuse him of unlawful snatching their family property, including land.
The accusers say they, like Kabaka Mutebi, are descendants of the late Kabaka Daudi Chwa II who reigned between 1897 and 1939 and is recorded to have had 36 children; 20 sons and 16 daughters. Kabaka Mutebi’s father, who succeeded Kabaka Chwa and became Kabaka Sir Edward Fredrick Muteesa II, was the fifth born-boy. What is significant in this case, however, is that Mutebi’s grandfather, Kabaka Chwa, was king when the British colonialists in 1900 parceled out Buganda land and created the land tenure system that is at the heart of the land chaos in Buganda to date.
The British gave Kabaka Chwa 350 square miles which are currently controlled by Kabaka Mutebi through the Buganda Land Board. However, the Kabaka’s suing relatives contend that his control is unlawful because they should be equal beneficiaries to the inheritance.
Sources tell The Independent that this issue came up in a side meeting to the Kabaka-Museveni meeting and was allegedly also attended by the princes and princesses who are suing the Kabaka. Museveni reportedly advised the members of the royal family to settle the issues out of court. He said if this fails, they are likely to embarrass the kingdom since the Kabaka could be told to appear and testify in court or in case the court rules in favour of the princes and princesses.
Leasing controversy
If as is speculated, the Kabaka and Museveni discussed these contentious land issues, why then did Katikkiro Mayiga on April 18 go ahead with the unveiling of the lease-issuing program dubbed ‘Ekyapa mu Ngalo “ (Title in the hand)? Was this in defiance to Museveni or was Mayiga rolling with the flow to avoid appearing to recapitulate after the meeting? What does all this say about the position of the Kabaka regarding the land evictions orchestrated by his Buganda Land Board?
Some people privy to the strategy of the Kabaka’s officials say Mengo’s unprecedented move to announce giving lease titles to those who had already registered was meant to appease the President and whoever was opposed to the registration scheme.
During the launch of the ‘Ekyapa mu Ngalo”, Katikkiro Mayiga was flanked by the BLB boss David Kiwalabye Male and spokesperson Dennis Bugaya. All of them spoke of how the acquisition of lease titles would strengthen the position of tenants in case anyone attempted to evict them. They explained that they started registering tenants (bibanja holders) on Kabaka’s land in 2015 and have files for 130,000 who paid Shs600,000 for those in the Buganda counties of Kyadondo and Busiro in the urban districts of Kampala and Wakiso and Shs100,000 for those in rural areas. To acquire lease titles they have to pay about Shs800,000 more.
But two days after Mayiga’s launch of the leasing programme, the highly respected Buganda elder, Abdu Nadduli, who is a Minister without Portfolio in Museveni’s government and a former Presidential advisor on Buganda issues, held a press conference in his office to challenge it. He accused Mengo and BLB of being “land grabbers who hide behind the Kabaka to terrorise Baganda and evict them from their land”.
“When they come and want to grab land they say “Kabaka asiimye atwale ettaka lino’ (Kabaka is pleased to take this land). What kind of institution, which claims to protect culture, can even sell off land meant for cultural practices,” Nadduli angrily said referring to a cultural site which had been sold off by BLB in his Luweero District.
Even Mabirizi who is suing the Kabaka over the issue says what Mengo is engaged in is illegal because “the Kabaka should be keeping the land in trust of the Buganda people not charging fees and getting money from it”.
In any case, he said, the lease agreements “have very many hidden clauses which are not usually revealed to the people signing them”.
Mabirizi says instead of responding to the issues raised in his case, the Kabaka’s lawyers are engaging delaying tactics, including asking him to first make a deposit of Shs500 million before the case can go on.
“I wrote to them in January asking them to give me the account number where I can deposit the money but up to now I have got no response from them,” Mabirizi told The Independent.
A day after Nadduli’s outburst, Lands Minister of Lands Amongi told The Independent in an interview on April 21 that she has prepared a Cabinet Paper to guide the government’s discussion and eventual position on the issue.
“The 1998 Land law says bonafide occupants of land should hold it in perpetuity which Mengo’s land lease proposal does not provide, “ she said, “I consulted with the Attorney General and he confirmed to me that it was against the law.”
Earlier in March, while addressing a public dialogue on land organised by Food Rights Alliance, Minister Omongi said her ministry is finding it more and more challenging to manage land in Buganda compared to other regions of the country. She blamed the land tenure system in Buganda which involves complex tenant landlord relations under the so-called Mailo land system.
“The landlords cannot productively use the land because the law protects tenants from eviction and the tenants cannot use it because they do not have titles,” Omongi said.
This has forced some landlords to sell off land with tenants on it which has led to massive evictions of people. In some cases, the peasants take to mob justice and beat up surveyors and land buyers.
Pse leave Kabaka’s land to Kabaka. His lineage is a biological entitlement and totally has northing to do with his subjects or employees/servants or friends or masqueraders save for individuals he so elects to benefit from his land in gift or business transactions.
Thanks for the story that sow a lot of authoritative move by the Kingdom who should have use a wind wind move and must a swell adhere to the national constitution . PAUL
The issue of the Kabaka being entitled to those 350 square miles (and the other lands he did not buy but claims) is as contentious as is the Nile Treaty that awarded the right of use of the Nile waters to Egypt. Just like the Nile Treaty dis-empowererd (in political jargon “dis-enfranchised”) the Nile basin countries from using the Nile for irrigation, the 1900 Buganda Agreement also does the same to people in Buganda. There could have been reasons for the Colonialists to think my great great grandfather did not warrant the use of the Nile waters at that time, but the case with the Buganda Agreement that allotted so much land to one person was a bribe for the Kabaka to allow them colonialists plunder our forests of timber and entrench themselves in our country for servitude. The Kabaka has no right to continue claiming that so-and-so many square miles are his just like the Egyptians have no right to prohibit us from using the Nile waters for our survival. Look at the drought that just occurred in Uganda, would Uganda really have been in such a situation if it were Israel? No way, they would have made the British and their blue-eyed boys the Egyptians go to hell! We Ugandans are tired of these inequities that were brought upon us by colonialists, some of whose interests were just slave trade. It is high time the British came to answer some hard questions. Why did they not give my grandfather so many miles as well, or allowed him to use the Nile? These are questions which politicians should force the British to answer now! Were we not considered to be people? did they think we were baboons not to aspire for equity and development? I believe that the Kabaka might have bought some land, that he is entitled to call his, but the one of the 1900 agreement we should give him only three (3) square miles (I feel this is fair equity) and the rest goes to Baganda! As for the Nile, let the Egyptians go hang, if not let the British give them the Thames River, for all they care!
Should Buganda still be grateful to President Museveni? In other words, is President Museveni the grantor of Buganda’s eminence in the Uganda history? Is the Bunganda Kingdom being rightly condemned for the land woes? Why is “Uganda” not “Unkore”, or “Usoga”, or “Ucholi”, or “Unyoro”, or “Uteso?” We can be better answered, if we are served with the right history. Why am I bringing in other regions of the country in a problem that seems to be essentially Buganda’s? The reason couldn’t be more clearer than an “isolationistic policy” being played out against Buganda. Buganda is being portrayed as: “selfish”, “greedy”, “backward”, “eccentric” and “chauvinistic” by people who do not share our views and history. But is this the case? I see it differently, in Mukono district there is a place called “Kisoga” signifying that majority of the inhabitants are “Soga.” In Wakiso district, along the Entebbe road there is a place called “Kitoro.” On Mawanda road, there is a place called “Kifumbira.” In the centre of Kampala there is a place called “Arua park.” Buganda has married and married off its sisters to men who are not necessarily of their kin, including to two former Presidents (Miria Obote and Sarah Amin). We are by form and substance, “Nationalistic.” However, the demand of our “Independence” seems to invoke this void that we are eccentric people. But what does history say? Buganda has demanded unequivocally for an independence status since the times of Ssekabaka Mwanga the more reason Buganda was not declared a colonial territory but rather “a protectorate” in 1894. One will want to recall that due to the agitation of an independent status, Mwanga was desposed in 1897. By 1900, when “Buganda” “signed” the “agreement”, Buganda was under “occupation” and “ruled” by a 3year old “King.” Buganda’s adversaries have used the “contents” within the “Buganda Agreement” to discredit Buganda’s values. They taken on every chance to put a “stain” on every one claiming to be a Muganda. But the 1900 “Buganda Agreement” was not done in the true spirit of Buganda. It was a “Colonial order” instructing on the way business was to be done going forward. The order created a new class of “Chiefs” who were meant to form a new centre for power contrary to that of the King. Consequently, after the Buganda Agreement, similar agreement were signed by other kingdoms and by 1902, we had the “first ordinance in council.” This among other things, laid down the legislative framework on which “Uganda” was to function. So, if Buganda is accused of signing the 1900 agreement, why aren’t similar accusations labelled against those Kingdoms that also signed?
The issue of “Ekyapa mu ngalo” is a “negotiation” out of a predicament and goes a long way with the current economic dynamism. The 1900 agreement defined the land tenure system that we are currently following. It created “mailo land” and “Crown land.” The spirit that formed the “Uganda land commission” is the same spirit that formed the “Buganda land board.” Mailo land created “landlords” by implication it also created the” landless.” The “Busulu and Envujjo” law of 1928 was to mollify this situation. The creation of “Bibanja” meant that people who didn’t own land could utilise it for commercial benefit if only they could pay a tax but could not own the land. With the growing commercialisation of land this gone on to create more conflicts on land. Two people could express different commercial interests and neither is to carry out one. For instance, Mengo could want to sell land it owns but on that piece of land there is a “Kibanja holder” who would have wished to build rentals. Mengo cannot sell its land because of a “Kibanja holder”, the Kibanja holder cannot construct his rentals because he does not have a land title. It is a stalemate. What Mengo is doing is to “make sense” out of “Bibanja holdings.” That someone can pay certain amount of money to obtain a “lease title.” And with a lease title someone can “own” land for a specified period of time. In another country or in certain regions of this country, government(s) has/have gone on to “compensate” landlords in order to settle the landless in what is normally termed as “redistribution of wealth. Have you heard about the “Sheema Cooperative Ranching Society?” It is an interesting case study.
This failing magazine is now using the Kabaka on its cover to sell more copies
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