MUKONO – A group of armed men on Monday raided a piece of land hosting a demonstration farm of Uganda Christian University (UCU) in Mukono District and beat up workers there, claiming that the land belongs to them.
The armed men, who also carried sticks and machetes, destroyed the crops and buildings on the land located in Ntawo, Muzingo Village in Mukono Municipality.
The UCU head of Skills Development, Dr. Livingstone Mutyaba, said some influential people in government are conniving with police and area leaders to grab university land. He said local council leaders are supporting the claimants with forged documents of ownership.
“They wake up with forged papers claiming that their forefathers were bona fide bibanja owners and others have presented offer letters. Surprisingly, the police are accepting the forged papers yet the university compensated all the squatters and the exercise ended in 2003 but these claimants started coming in 2016 to date. They come from Kinawataka and Namanve where they grabbed land claiming to be veterans,” Dr Mutyaba said.
Mr David Mugawe, the UCU Deputy Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration, said they have petitioned the Security Minister, Gen Elly Tumwine, over the matter.
The dispute over the land at Ntawo dates far back to 2016 when a group of people attempted to lynch Anglican bishops who were visiting the land. In 2016, UCU sued Harington Wafula Ogubi, Christine Nanyanzi Ogubi and one Semakula and obtained an interim order from Jinja High Court to preserve the status quo on the land until the dispute had been disposed of in court. The matter is still pending before the court.
