Opinion: After years of suffering, it's time for bibanja holders on mailo land to win their land back

Land was a key factor in the colonisation of the World. Empires were built on the ground and not in space; there were no virtual empires.

The 1900 Buganda Agreement followed this pattern of history in the colonisation of Uganda. The agreement distributed land to the collaborating chiefs who gave unreserved support to British colonial rule in Uganda.

The land was the bribe to the collaborators and was given free without any development conditions. The citizens who lived and tilled on the land became surfs or bibanja holders with their holding now at the mercy of the new mailo landlords.

They became landless peasants or bibanja holders whom the new mailo owners were free to evict at will, sell the land, and to draw rent and tribute from bibanja holders as they wished.

They levied cotton, demanding as much as one-third of the bibanja holders’ harvest.  Other form of suffering born by bibanja holders were exhortations, poll tax for the colonial Government, a one month’s labour for the Buganda Government, rents and tribute.

Yet it is the bibanja holders who have dominated agriculture and supported the various administrations in the Country through the production of cash crops-cotton and coffee.

They have also sustained the country by producing food, and have unitized their small bibanja, on which the engine of development of our country has run for many years.

The 1928 Busulu and Envujo law which came in to give a measure of security of tenure to the bibanja holders, however limited it was, never progress to the next level, as the Busulu and Envujo Law was repealed by the Land Reform Decree of 1975.

The decree removed the security of tenure which the Busulu and Envujo Law had extended to bibanja holders, and reduced their status to tenants at sufferance.

When the NRM came to power, it vowed to redress all historical injustices. In this context, the Land Act of 1998 was enacted and revived the efficacy of the repealed Busulu and Envujo Law.

The security of tenure restored by the 1998 Land Act made provision for the dual ownership of title by Bibanja owners obtaining certificates of occupancy on their holding. However the titled mailo owners do not recognise the certificate of occupancy.

Consequently, the mailo landlords have continued to evict bibanja holders willy-nilly whom they now carefully call squatters.

They deploy lawyers, court brokers, valuers, police, army, private security firms, kanyama, local defence units, bribe local councils.

It is a monstrous circle to which bibanja holders have lost their homes, properties and their livelihood. They in addition been maimed in eviction exercises and in some cases, lost their lives.

Lawyers, judges and landlords hold both the government (executive) and the bibanja holders hostage. They quote the constitutional sanctity of property, they play around with lawful and bona fide tenancy and in these contexts, the bibanja holders almost invariably lose.

Bibanja holders cannot afford lawyers, they own no media houses, hold no press conferences, make no radio calls, and the law is a mystery to them.

What they know is that a piece of land is their kibanja, they know that the bones of their ancestors are interred there and that they were born on that piece of land.

Mailo landlords are selling off land like any other commodity without any social or ideological considerations whatsoever. They sell their mailo to buy vehicles, build houses or to raise air tickets to join the armies that sweep Japan, Europe, Canada and USA (kyeyo).

This sale bonanza has caused bibanja holders to be living in a permanent state of trauma. They do not know when they will be sold off to a ruthless landlord.

They do not know if the in-coming landlord will compensate them adequately for them to start a new life elsewhere. They do not even know where “that elsewhere is”?

The landlords are not bothered what happens to whom they now call squatters (instead of bibanja holders), once they are evicted. There is no even a single NGO follow up of the evictees.

Land reform is accordingly imperative otherwise hell will break loose and no one may be able to pick up the pieces.

Already there is a low intensity land war going on in several places.

Security of tenure cuts across religious, tribal or political differences. It is in this scheme of things, that the call of President Museveni for a comprehensive reform of the mailo tenancy and indeed in any other tenancy, necessary to give security of tenure in perpetuity for all citizens, is a noble call and must be supported by all Ugandans.

The author is a senior lawyer and minister of State for Lands.