President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has directed landlords to stop illegalevictions of bibanja holders.
Image: PPU
President Yoweri Museveni has directed that landlords who have charged excessive nominal rent fees (obusuulu) to tenants to return it to bibanja holders immediately or risk being arrested.“The landlords who have been charging more than the agreed busuulu fees by the district must return it, and if they try to evict our people, we shall arrest them. You must pay back all the money you have taken from these people and the evictions are illegal,” H.E Museveni said.
Speaking at the 35th Heroes Day celebrations held on 9th June 2024 at Mpenja Church of Uganda Primary School playgrounds, Mpenja Sub-county, Gomba District, under the theme: “Hail Our Heroes: A Secure Uganda Is Now Reality;, the President said the issue of the Land lords and bibanja holders was resolved in the Constituent Assembly (CA) and also in the Land Act of 1998.“We said a landlord has no power to evict a kibanja person especially the one who was on that plot of land (Kibanja) by 1983.
The only thing was to provide some nominal rent (busuulu) and that was to be fixed by the district land boards. The landlords must accept what we agreed on in 1995 because Idi Amin had abolished mailo land but we restored ownership to allow a win-win situation, but these landlords don't listen to the NRM and they think it’s a joke,” the President emphasized.
It should be remembered that in 1995, a new constitution was established, and land rights were clarified, which stated that the land in Uganda belonged to its people, and reinstated private land ownership. President Museveni was however dismayed to learn that landlords have decided to ignore the agreed-upon nominal fees paid by the bibanja holders on their land and are going ahead to evict them.
According to Gomba District LC5 chairperson, Mr. Kiviiri Geoffrey, the approved nominal fees paid to the landlords is Shs10,000 per year but landlords have refused such payments leading to the increasing land wrangles in the area.
The President said new policies will be put in place to safeguard this.“Maybe what we have to resolve in the NRM parliamentary caucus is to provide that if the landlords don't accept the rent fees, it (rent) should be taken and kept at the sub-county.
All this suffering is not following what was put in the law,” H.E Museveni directed.
President Museveni who is also the Commander-In-Chief of the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) further revealed that they managed to succeed during the protracted liberation war of 1981-1986 because of the correct principles of the National Resistance Army/Movement(NRA/M).“What enabled us to succeed were the correct principles of the NRM because you hear that there were other groups which tried to fight but they could not manage,” he said.
He explained that as fighters, they believed in Patriotism, Pan-Africanism, building a new society through socio-economic transformation and democracy. “When I'm in Kampala, I normally hear even the religious people talking about the traditional religion which is very strong here but we were able to handle those people and showed them what to do. We could listen to them and also show them the way. We were able to lead these traditional people in a modern way.
We told them that we can get blessings from our ancestors but bullets can kill and we did it a modern way and the machine gunners who attacked the then government were actually from the traditional people. These people were the ones who stormed Kampala,” the President asserted.
President Museveni also underscored the role of Gomba in the protracted struggle. "This was an operational area for UFM and FEDEMO, the NRA was operating in the Northeast of here but Gomba was a corridor for our recruits from the South West to the Luwero area. And even when we were going to attack Kabamba we passed through Gomba here,” he said.