KAMPALA– State Minister for Water Ronald Kibuule and a High Court judge have been accused of conniving with a businessman to evict hundreds of residents three villages in Nama Sub County, Mukono District.
The revelation was made by Peter Mulira, a lawyer representing the accused families while meeting the Commission of Inquiry into land matters on Friday.
Mr Mulira said Mr Kibuule’s name keeps appearing in the activities of businessman Dick Kihangire Banoba in the violent evictions of residents from the contested land comprising 488 acres.
Mr Banoba is said to have evicted the residents with the help of police yet from the land which is claimed by the family of the late Ham Mukasa.
“I have never met Banoba but he is fronting Minister Kibuule. Whenever we have problems on Ham Mukasa’s land, Kibuule is everywhere in Ham Mukasa’s land,” Mr Mulira told the land probe.
He also said a High Court judge, whose name he did not reveal, has been advising businessman Banoba on how to acquire the land.
He added: “We have buried people who have died due to stress and resistance on land because we cannot get assistance from any office due to fraud. It is unbearable and we cannot take it anywhere,” said Mr Mulira.
The lawyer also accused officials in the administrator general’s office of supporting the businessman to illegally evict the people.
Mulira said several people fraudulently acquired letters of administration and got multiple and overlapping titles claiming ownership of Ham Mukasa’s land.
In response, Justice Catherine Bamugemereire wondered how the businessman got a court order to evict people despite an ongoing investigation into the ownership dispute over land.
“I want to warn whoever is behind these evictions to stop. Between now and October 25, should anything happen to anybody, we shall not hesitate to apply the long arm of the law,” she ordered.
The land probe team later visited the disputed land and residents appealed to the team to prevail over Mr Banoba to enable them temporarily repossess their land until court cases are disposed of.
This is not the first time Mr Kibuule, who is also the Mukono North Member of Parliament, is being implicated in land wrangles.
Early this year, Mr Kibuule was accused of fraudulently acquiring possession of land measuring more than 85 acres on Block 369, plot 10 at Kigaya-Golomolo in Buikwe District.
However, the government has since cancelled the land titles held by Mr Kibuule saying they were issued in error.