{UAH} Katikiiro; Do Away with Mailo Land - Return Land to Clans )invoke Native Rights)

Buganda Bunyoro, Toro, Acoli, Lango  Teso - read this carefully.

At the time of settlement by the English colonists in 1788, Australia was considered a vast unsettled and unexplored continent. The country was however fully settled by the indigenous Aboriginal peoples who had divided the country into many regions each under the jurisdiction of a clan group. It was not until 1993 that the Australia Federal Government first acknowledged the historical right of the indigenous peoples to land ownership. As a result the development of Australian land registry systems has not been influenced by the land tenure systems or patterns of Australia's indigenous peoples.

And Uganda?

The war in Luwero in the 80's for those who do not know was about land. The war drums in Uganda today, are exactly about the same issues.  NRM establishment has alienated those who thought they were going for a land bonanza as war booty and they are ready to fight NRM until that objective is met!

 

Besides acquisition of land and failure to develop, it has also irritated many and that has been the sole driver of Uganda's endemic corruption.

 

I have written elsewhere that; Bunyoro, Toro, Acoli, WestNile, Busoga, Lango ,Teso should form their own land boards. The situation that is developing in Bunyoro is not very healthy and is alarming.

 

These Kingdom Land Boards (sort of KCCA) could;

 

a.       Plan land physically

b.      manage land under the clan system (communal land ownership)

c.       distribute land to the natives and investor in that region as per their own customs and culture .

 

Kingdoms should seek a way of starting Land Use activities in their regions i.e. housing, urban agriculture, town development, and road design and engineering, forest and water resources management.

 

Furthermore Uganda is transforming and with the spread of English education and capitalistic economic tendencies, many people in 25 years from now, majority population will not be living off the land. That implies there will be changes in land use strategies.  But the above mentioned kingdoms and chieftains can caution against rabid land trade as it is happening in Buganda.

 

This is what is happening in Buganda and now Bunyoro. Increased commercial trade, oil exploitation will generate undesired and unexpected events i.e. and irrational land trade, slum development (unplanned estates), road excavations, major town expansion  without systematic planning, environment degradation, social exclusion and  unemployment, an unplanned industrial growth, major rural to urban influx – i.e. Hoima

 

This is the reason why I have always opposed wasting money building new cities, where we have remnants of colonial establishment like Masindi, Iganga, Hoima, Masaka, Jinja, Gulu, Kitgum Forportal, Lira, Soroti which we have failed to manage and plan properly-

 

Let regional governments the Kingdoms and Chieftains, plan them into major city centers to course development into the regions.

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Bwanika Nakyesawa Luwero

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