;)
WHAT NEXT: 94-year-old Yvonne Nabunya ponders life
after eviction from the land she had lived on for decades
SIR� Mr Kulumba-Kiyingi, a retired land officer from central
government, by his own admission, did not address my fears that Baganda,
sooner rather than later, will become permanently displaced persons as a
result of selling their land, and ignoring Mengo�s caution.
This
is so, thanks to the new millionaires/billionaires who are scrambling to
buy large tracts of land in Buganda as if there is no land in other parts
of Uganda.
The first act of this privileged class is to evict all
the bona fide occupants on the demised land with only token compensation
or none at all.
This is the courtesy of the 1998 Land Act. The
mass eviction now very common in Buganda were rarely heard of while the
�Busuulu and Envujjo� law of 1928 was still in existence. Indeed, there
was a provision in that law, which required the Landlord to provide
alternative settlement to the evicted occupants or pay them adequate
compensation.
The impending and rampant mass evictions in various
parts of Buganda as Ssembabule, Mukono, Mubende, Buloba, Rubaga South,
Kansanga, Kabalagala, Nakiragala near King�s College Buddo, to mention but
a few places where bonafide occupants have been evicted, should have come
to Mr Kiyingi�s notice. Kiyingi, in his letter �Baganda would prefer
selling their land to the wealthy non-Baganda,� in The New Vision of
October 19, does not tell us why those evictions still take place in
Buganda inspite of the authorities he likes to quote.
His
indifference to the plight of the displaced Baganda, reminds me of some
Baganda leaders in the central government who successively since 1966,
worked tirelessly against the interests of their fellow Baganda! Baganda,
the richest and most educated community before 1986, are now among the
poorest tribes in Uganda. Baganda have therefore no alternative but to
sell their land to highest bidder. Beggars cannot be choosers!.
S. Mukasa
Kampala |
