All these have been dragged to courts of Law in their individual capacities. A criminal case file number DRFT/HCT/00/LD/CS/1058/2022 has been recorded and filed at the High Court Land Division at TWEED Towers Kampala. Their accuser is Businessman and Kibanja owner, Rugumayo Ramon Kim, among others. He is taking them on for allegedly trespassing on his and others` private property.

Through his lawyers of Mungoma, Mabonga, Wakhakha and Co. Advocates, Rugumayo on 1^st November 2022 instituted legal procedures against the group, opting for Criminal trespass, unlawful evictions and land grabbing, destruction of properties and masquerading as judges, plus obtaining property by false presence.

The Story

Available documents indicate that around May 2022, in a commando-style and in company of both uniformed and plain-clothed armed military men, Kabubbu village in Kasangati, was raided. This raid was led by the man himself, Brig. Gen. Ssemakula Lukyamuzi, the head of State House Land Protection Unit. And guarding him, on top of the military men were matchets and club-wielding goons moving on top of excavators. The Brigadier was also accompanied by a one Hamza, purported to be his lawyer.

Without wasting time, they exercised the unfortunate actions of destroying property like houses and gardens, leaving the village grounded as if it had never had projects running in there. Rugumayo, the appellant who, before the incident had property and other projects running on his land, narrated to this website how his Kibanja on block 169 Plot 22 Situate at Kabubbu, Kyadondo, Wakiso District, was invaded by Lukyamuzi and caused severe losses in the village. Even the authorities he made SOS calls to, turned up but they were overwhelmed and just looked on.

Rugumayo is said to have bought this land from Stanley Ssemwanga in 2016 at a tune of UGX60M. He detailed in the interview, how properties worth billions of shillings including houses, gardens, and trees among others, were destroyed, not to mention the vandalizing and destruction of construction/building materials from the ongoing construction sites in the area. They razed the six homesteads, forcing the inhabitants to forcefully evacuate, leaving the place bare as if nothing had ever happened or erected on the said land.

Even efforts by the area Police (Kabubbu Police Post) to save people’s properties were unsuccessful as the hooligans and the military men with guns and clubs heavily resisted amidst gunshots opened against the hapless police officers. The defeated Cops coiled their tails and withdrew to their station, leaving the perpetuators to properly effect their unfortunate actions of destroying of any kind of stuff they wanted, in such an intimidating and illegitimate manner.

With excavators, the strangers took to the party completely erasing and grounding everything found erected on the land, as well as cutting down all tribes of plant in there. Before the bloody and calamitous incidents, the perps were seen disembarking from cars including the lately most feared two drones, registration numbers UBD 578K, and UBG 760S, as well as Saloon cars number UBK 417G and, a Subaru whose registration plates were not captured.

Rugumayo told us that he bought the said Kibanja in 2016 from businessman and property dealer Ssemwanga who had earlier bought the same from Christine Nazziwa, wife to the original owner, the late Kayobyo. That in fact, Christine Nazziwa, the seller and her biological son Nsubuga Abdul appended their signatures on both agreements of sale of Kibanja to Ssemwanga who, would later sell the same to Rugumayo….

According to Rugumayo, the now new occupant and others, are strangers not known in the community, nor the Church, or even by Nazziwa and Nsubuga, the original owners who would later sell the said land to him and his fellow victims. Save for the fact that they are people being used to grab land illegally with their good connections in big offices in the land.

Before the law suit, Rugumayo`s lawyers sent an intension to sue dated 28^th October 2022, referenced MW/GEN/10/2022, which was served to Frank Kyazze (RDC) Kasangati Sub District, and Brig. Gen. Ssemakula Lukyamuzi. They demanded that the accused cease unlawful interferences with private property. Rugumayo first reported the matter to the office of the RDC. At this time, a one Wandera Asuman was the intruder, purportedly on instructions of Church of Uganda, which interference was successfully stopped.

In fact, after the stoppage, the Bibanja owners had resumed their activities on the said land, trying to repair the destroyed houses and other developments. However, to their dismay, on 26^th October 2022, Kyazze and Lukyamuzi summoned them for a meeting in which they (Kyazze and Lukyamuzi) pronounced themselves on the matter that, they (the Bibanja owners) are illegally occupying their land and hence, were told to immediately vacate. They introduced total strangers to them as the `rightful owners` of the land!

Rugumayo and his lawyers opine that Kyazze and Lukyamuzi should have rescinded and stop any kind of intimidation, evictions, destruction and trespassing on their Bibanja, and stop masquerading as judges in the matters relating to their land. Watch the space.

Also the Chairman for ‘Bagagga Kwagalana’ group of the haves in the capital city, Kirumira has lately been in the media for none but controversial land matters. The latest is when he prevailed over the all-powerful Minister of Security Gen. Elly Tumwine to publicly go against a fellow army General, Lt. Gen. Charles Angina, with all the arrogance in his reach. This, all in the name of protecting Kirumira’s interest. That he had earlier been beaten and nearly stripped by angry mob over the same land is a public secret.

And about a month ago, a lengthy dossier went viral on social media and print tabloids, depicting a city tycoon at whose mercy relied some individuals’ lives over land disputes. Among the people lined was James Kibuuka Mulowooza. Whereas the innuendo-smitten dossier never mentioned the tycoon, social media posts reckoned it was Kirumira. To confirm these allegations, we went down to work.

Information gathered is that indeed, Kirumira and Mulowooza’s relations are no longer at ease. This is so, even with the former keeping in the background and parading in his place, Gideon Kirumira, his son, at the vanguard. It is a do-or-die mission aimed at Mulowooza retaining, or Kirumira grabbing the land comprised in Mawokota Block 107, Plot 1 and 3.

It all started with Gideon Kirumira filing a complaint with the much feared Presidential Anti-Corruption Unit headed by Lt. Col. Edith Nakalema, on January 2018. Gideon had been arrested by Mpigi police upon his ‘visit’ at the disputed property at Namwabula village. He claim to have bought the 400 acres through his sister Brenda Kirumira Namugga, from a one Leo Lule Kimalempaka, in August 2018.

In the complaint, he asserts how he and his family backup went to open boundaries, only to find policemen guarding the property they claimed belong to Ministry of Energy. Kirumira however brags how he, even with the police’s resistance, opened the boundaries anyway. He further reveals how he had plot 1 sliced into more plots namely; 16, 17, 18 and 19.

Even with opening boundaries, claiming ownership and boasting of the titles’ custody, Kirumira Jnr is branded an impersonator and illegal claimant of the property which, we gathered, Ministry of Energy not only owns but already placed it in custody and use of Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC). Records have it that Ministry of Energy purchased this land from Mulowooza’s Ssese Habitats Resort Limited, presented by Mulowooza & Brothers Ltd. The latter bought the land way back in 2008.

Digging further for what could have attracted the Kirumiras’ interest in this particular land, which had changed hands over years to belong to Government, we partially got the answers from Ministry of Energy Permanent Secretary, Prisca Boonabantu’s letter to her counterpart in Ministry of Lands over the matter. This letter was prompted by Kirumiras sudden desire for the property ownership.

“The above land was gazetted under the Land Acquisition (Kenya-Uganda Oil Pipeline Extension Project) Statutory Instrument Number 54 of 2009 for the development of a storage terminal and subsequently acquired by Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development,” reads in part, Boonabantu’s letter. Documents available clearly indicate how Mulowooza had acquired the land over a year before Government picked interest in the same.

Boonabantu further explains that her Ministry had since authorized Uganda National Oil Company Limited to develop the land and that the same had already commenced preparations for development at the property where, construction and operation of a petro-chemical products storage and distribution terminal is already underway.

In the letter titled “Illegal claim of ownership of freehold register Volume 29 Folio 4 Block 107 Plot 7 Land at Namwambula, Mawokota, Mpigi District,” Boonabantu proceeds to accuse Kirumiras of “illegal actions”

aimed at “jeopardizing the efforts of Government in developing the petroleum products storage and distribution terminal which is a key component in the commercialization of Uganda’s oil and development sector.”

She winds up requesting her counterpart to ascertain and clarify the legality of Kirumiras’ illegal claims” of ownership. Trust the mafia in Country Uganda. Whereas Boonabantu’s letter puts the matter in a self-explanatory position, the Kirumiras had long sliced the land in different plots, supposedly with the help of some individuals in the Ministry of Lands.

Replying to both Boonabantu and Lt. Col. Edith Nakalema’s letters to her Ministry, the outgoing Minister of lands Betty Amongi made an unbelievable but existing revelation. Whereas the land being discussed is soiled in one piece at Nabwabula in Mpigi District, available documents show several pieces of land with different plot numbers on the same block… Watch this space…