{UAH} Nantaba-Kayihura feud exposes govt failure in handling land wrangles - Special Reports - monitor.co.ug
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Nantaba-Kayihura feud exposes govt failure in handling land wrangles - Special Reports - monitor.co.ug
The land wrangles in Kayunga Distrcit have taken a new twist with a feud erupting between Police Chief Gen Kale Kayihura and state minister for Lands Idah Nantaba.
The feud raises fresh questions about the government's ability to approach and resolve to deal with the land question. Ms Nantaba accuses the IGP of allegedly siding with land grabbers in the district. The minister's outburst comes after Gen Kayihura blamed her for the land wrangles in the district that have turned tenants against landlords.
In a rebuttal to her accusations of fomenting trouble in Kayunga last weekend, Gen Kayihura accused Ms Nantaba, who is also the district woman MP for Kayunga, of 'unfairly' accusing him yet he is in the district on the directive of President Museveni. At the end of a day-long tour of Kayunga on July 3, Mr Museveni promised to come up with a decision regarding the simmering wrangles between landlords and tenants in Kayunga, which have resulted in violent attacks and sometimes deaths.
Mr Museveni said: "I defeated former President Obote so these ones won't beat me. Land is not like a handkerchief which you put in the pocket and walk away, we can always get the truth because we can trace the history. So I have come here as the judge and to find the truth."
Six weeks later, however, Mr Museveni has not returned to Kayunga to deliver his "judgment" and instead Gen Kayihura, who says he is in the district on the President's orders, has proved divisive, according to Ms Nantaba.
Problem from the past
Land matters seem to be taking up much of Mr Museveni's time recently. On February 26, the President took time off from preparations for his father's burial in Rwakitura to attend to urgent land matters. Following numerous evictions of tenants, Mr Museveni said Uganda risks having "internally displaced" people as a result of the emergence of a group of "Bayaaye-minded, nouveau-riche, pseudo capitalists". The land problem has been changing face over the years, and widespread evictions in various parts of the country became most pronounced during Mr Museveni's era. The problem had manifested slightly differently earlier.
When landlords imposed high land rents on tenants, for example, it gave rise to the Bataka agitation of the 1920s. The Bataka, the clan heads of Buganda, had been overlooked in the allocation of land in the 1900 Buganda Agreement, so they sided with the majority common people who were turned into tenants when their land was signed away to collaborating chiefs and the royal family.
The colonial government responded by passing the Busuulu and Envujjo law of 1928. Busuulu is land rent collected in cash while envujjo is collected in terms of produce. The law set a reasonable ceiling on land rents.
The problem assumed a new face after independence. Some of the land the colonial agreements had signed off to chiefs was tilled by people of different ethnicities from the new owners. It was the case in what became known as the Lost Counties, the counties that Buganda had taken over but voted in 1964 to return to Bunyoro. Baganda "absentee" landlords held titles to lands tilled by majority Banyoro. The same happened in parts of what is known as the Rwenzururu Kingdom, where titles for large chunks were held by "absentee" Toro landlords.
In response to these and other challenges, former President Idi Amin, through the 1975 Land Reform Decree, nationalised all land and converted mailo and freehold titles to leasehold. The decree made it practically impossible for tenants to be evicted from land.
Enter Museveni era
Amin's decree was reversed by the 1995 Constitution and the Land Act 1998. Mr Museveni argued that whereas the problem of dual land ownership, a situation where the title holder and the tilling tenant both claim ownership of the same piece of land, is problematic, Amin's measures had flaws. To some, this seemed like Mr. Museveni argument was that all the landlords had acquired their land through allocation by the colonialists when actually some of them had bought it.
The laws passed during Mr. Museveni's rule practically reinstated the 1928 order, restoring dual land ownership while attempting to make it hard to evict tenants. The 1998 Land Act, for instance, set a nominal fee of Shs 1000 as annual rent payable by tenants to landlords for the use of their land. It also set stringent measures for eviction, requiring the landlord to sufficiently compensate the tenant if he wants to repossess the land. This means that tenants can only be evicted for nonpayment of rent, which is too low that most landlords are not motivated to collect it.
Faced with the reality that those who hold titles to land tilled by tenants could not get any reasonable value from it, many cheaply sold the titles to powerful individuals who could effect evictions. And the spate of evictions flew are now increasing out of control. These "bayaaye-minded" capitalists carrying out the evictions, Mr Museveni said at Rwakitura, connive with "corrupt local leaders, police and courts" to deprive a "still un-sensitised peasantry" of land.
Measures put up
The President has since announced urgent measures to deal with the land problem. He set up a committee to "go area by area returning people illegally evicted back to their bibanja (untitled land)." The committee would be chaired by Ms Nantaba, who tenants now love as much as landlords hate her.
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