By Andrew Irumba
Kampala: A bitter land wrangle is raging on between businesswoman Kellen Kayonga and a group of over 400 locals led by city fashionista Ruth Namayirira.
Our snoops reveal that Kayonga, the proprietor of Askar Security and several other businesses in Uganda, is battling for a chunk of land measuring 28 acres located in Mbilu village, Garuga, Wakiso district. Namayirira says that “Kayonga illegally took over our family land situate on Block 454, Plot 9, Mbilu, Garuga, measuring 10 acres and demarcated it into seven plots, after which she gave us a nonexistent plot known as Plot 45.” Namayirira adds that “Kayonga was helped by city businessman Sam Bucyana and a surveyor identified as Richard Lugolobi to forge a land title to our land.”
She adds that Kayonga encroached on her family land after using armed men to evict locals from the remaining 18 acres in the same area, but finding problems evicting Namayirira and her family from the 10 acres. Namayirira claims that the land under contention was inherited by her late father Charles Namayirira from her grandfather late Leo Namalubi, who had bought it from late Galabuzi Ssegujja in 1983, who was the landlord. She claims that in 2005 her father duly paid Ssegujja money for transfer forms for the same land but later passed on before he could acquire the title of ownership, although there is overwhelming evidence to prove that he owned the land.
She reveals however that prior to his death, Ssegujja had sent Lugolobi to survey the land, such that all squatters would get their demarcations and land titles. However, instead of surveying the land, Lugolobi forged documents pertaining to its ownership, then linked up with Bucyana, before the two sold the land to Kayonga. She reveals that some of the squatters who had refused to vacate the land after Kayonga’s men fenced it off were either clobbered, jailed at Kigo Prisons or intimidated into fleeing. Namayirira and all the affected locals have since petitioned Justice Catherine Bamugemereire’s Land Inquiry Commission to rush to their rescue.
