Nabos Iguru, one of the affected persons told Uganda Radio Network that Kaliisa acquired a title for the land in 2019 without the consent of residents, which he wants to use to evict them. According to Iguru, Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom offered the contested piece of land to residents and wonders how Kaliisa came to acquire the title without their consent or that of the kingdom.
More than
500 residents of Kinogozi parish in Buhimba Sub County in Kikuube district are
on the verge of being evicted from their homes. The residents are feuding with
Edward Kaliisa, a prominent businessman over 160 acres of land. The contested
land is found in Kinogozi West village in Kinogozi parish in Buhimba Sub County.
Residents say that they are living in fear after the tycoon threatened to
forcefully evict them from their ancestral land donated by Bunyoro Kitara
Kingdom. The contested land also hosts key government facilities
including Omugo Bisereko primary school, Komukyeya Secondary school, Lucy
Bisereko health center III, St Andrew C.O.U and the royal burial grounds of the
Omukama Andrea Duhaga among others.
Nabos Iguru, one of the affected persons told Uganda Radio Network that Kaliisa
acquired a title for the land in 2019 without the consent of residents, which
he wants to use to evict them. According to Iguru, Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom offered
the contested piece of land to residents and wonders how Kaliisa came to
acquire the title without their consent or that of the kingdom.
//Cue in;”Gasani hali ba…
Cue out:…Ekyapa bi sazibwemu.”//
Samali Kiiza, another resident says that they are living in tension. She calls
on both the government and the Kingdom to come to their rescue. David Tusiime,
another resident says they are ready to defend the land they have occupied
since the 1940s by all means.
//cue in;”Amananu gali tukuhura…
Cue out:…Ki tuku sasya.”//
Ochaki Nyabongo, the representative of Kahoora Division in Hoima City in the Bunyoro
Kitara kingdom parliament, says the land belongs to Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom,
which gave it to residents. He says that whoever acquired a land title on the contested
land did it illegally.
Runyoro Audio
//Cue in: ”Itaka lyo mukama…
Cue out:…mukama nuwe agaba,”//
Amlan Tumusiime, the Kikuube Resident District Commissioner-RDC called on the
residents to remain calm, saying nobody will evict them. He promised to
petition the lands ministry to find out how Kaliisa acquired a title on a piece
of land with more than 500 families without their knowledge.
//Cue in: ”You saw how…
Cue out:…This to happen.”//
Kaliisa, who is being accused by the residents told Uganda Radio Network in an
interview on Friday that he genuinely acquired the land and processed a title
in 2019. He says the land neither belongs to the resident nor Bunyoro Kitara
Kingdom as claimed.
//cue in;”Ebintu eba baliza…
Cue out:…nomwenda kinana nomwenda.”//
In April this year, leaders in Bunyoro sub-region raised a red flag over the
increasing existence of fraudulent land titles in the Bunyoro sub-region.
According to the leaders, there are many land titles in the region that
were acquired fraudulently hence putting residents on the verge of being
evicted from their ancestral land.
Drawn from Hoima,
Kikuube, Buliisa, Masindi, Kiryandongo, Kagadi, Kakumiro and Buliisa districts,
the leaders appealed to the Lands Ministry to intervene and cancel all the
titles acquired fraudulently. A number of brutal and forceful evictions have
taken place in the Bunyoro sub-region since 2014.
The victims have never been accorded any protection by the
government. In February 2019 more than
500 families were brutally evicted from their ancestral land in Kyabisagazi 1
and Kyabisagazi 2 villages in Kigorobya sub-county Hoima district. Four
toddlers were killed during the brutal eviction by armed men in uniforms
similar to those of the Uganda Peoples Defense forces and the Anti-riot
police.
The contested land measuring 485 acres was at the center of a dispute between
Edgar Agaba, a businessman in Hoima town and more than 500 families. To date, the evicted people have never
received any help are landless.
