Corroborated by State Minister for Lands Dr. Sam Mayanja, a voluminous survey report by the Lands Ministry has indicated that the large group of land dealers and claimants whom the Kira Mayor Julius Mutebi has been backing (and continues to) are actually fraudsters with no genuine or legitimate claim on the Bulindo land whose proprietorship they have been claiming. Led by one Sam Ssebina, the group has been at large duping innocent people (chiefly middle-class Kampalans) to part with their hard-earned money to buy from them land that actually doesn’t belong to them.
Signed and authenticated by Assistant Commissioner Mapping & Surveys Vianney Lutaaya and Commissioner Land Registration Baker Mugaino, the report of the Lands Ministry surveying and boundary-opening, which took more than a year to compile, indicates that the land particularized as Block 182, which is part of a much larger piece of land, belongs to the estate of late GB William Wagumbulizi. Originally relating to several square miles in present-day Bulindo in Kira, the title relating to this land was first issued out on 14th May 1935 in the names of BM Yakobo Kyendiba, and that was the position up to 8th April 1975 when the same was transferred and registered in the names of GB William Wagumbulizi, whose estate administrator, upon death, became Japhes Mukiibi Biyimbwa Wagumbulizi, who became the registered proprietor of the land on 18th March 2002.
As of that time, one had to be farsighted to appreciate the value contained therein because Bulindo of 2002 was merely one of the remotest and sparsely populated parts of Kampala in which not many people had interest. Few people lived there, chiefly doing rudimentary farming at the time. Taking advantage of Japhes Wagumbulizi’s advancing age, busy schedule, and vastness of the land (hundreds of acres), shrewd Kampalans (abagezigezi) began taking advantage by smuggling in people who settled on some parts and began cultivating and generally doing small-time farming.
Such rogue-minded acts are commonly deployed when it comes to land-grabbing schemes in Kampala and surrounding districts. After some time, these very smuggled people are facilitated to claim ownership, with some calling themselves bibanja owners, before proceeding to work around the profoundly corrupt and inefficient land administration system in Uganda in order to become registered owners, with even titles!
The Lands Ministry report, which has since been validated, owned, and accepted as an official government document (having been authenticated by both Mayanja and Commissioner Land Registration), shows that over the years, fraudsters came into the picture and used dubious means to become the registered landowners of some of the land on Block 182 in Bulindo. Several false and dubious entries were even attempted on the register in order to have such fraudulent transactions validated as authentic. The inquiry into the dispute (which at some point had Mayanja thickly getting involved after media reports indicated that Gen. Elly Kayanja was threatening some residents) revealed that over the years, the fraudsters were able to deprive Japhes Wagumbulizi of more than 70 acres off his vast piece of land and had gone ahead to create fraudulent titles relating to the same.
The mapping and survey report revealed that many of these land titles had criminally been created on top of Mzee Wagumbulizi’s genuine title, which relates to a much larger piece of land in Bulindo, which originally wholly belonged to his grandfather. It was common practice in Buganda those days for one prominent family to originally own such large swathes of land, which over several decades and centuries would be distributed to other people coming to settle into the area.
On being petitioned, ironically by the very land grabbers, Mayanja went to the land for a locus visit and ordered the status quo to remain as it were to allow his ministry adequate time to inquire into the entire dispute between Mzee Wagumbulizi and those falsely claiming ownership and interest in his own land. The verification committee had diverse representation from the disputants, the area LC leaders, Kira Municipality leadership, the RDC, the area police, and the Lands Ministry, which by law is mandated to have the last word on all matters relating to land administration. The verification related to Block 182 plots 24, 28, 31, 47, 58, 62, 72, & 1448. Some of these blocks, it was subsequently established, had fraudulently been created to the detriment of Mzee Wagumbulizi.
Some of the disputants included Reapers Cooperative Society Ltd, Musana Mixed Farm Ltd, Sam Ssebina, Musa Nyanzi, Kagenda James Semakula, Margaret Nalweyiso Lupampa, Micheal Musumba, Bruce Musinguzi, Mzee Wagumbulizi himself, and others. All these and others were repeatedly invited to the public hearing meetings the Lands Ministry organized in the community at Bulindo for much of 2022 and 2023. Some of them demanded the cancellation of Mzee Japhes Mukiibi Biyimbwa Wagumbulizi’s titles, claiming there was overlap. Even Gen. Kayanja attended some of these meetings and gave his side of the story regarding some of the land he had acquired in Bulindo relating to the same Block 182.
The survey registers, namely Kalamazo and Cadaster, were all inspected and examined as part of the very inclusive verification exercise. The entire block and the subsequent subdivisions were all scrutinized as ought to be. At the end of it all, plenty of false titling was unearthed and found to have been occasioned on the register to the detriment of Mzee Wagumbulizi, whose title has since been recalled by the Commissioner of Land Registration for correction and cleaning up.
All the other titles that had fraudulently been enacted, purporting to be genuine whereas not, were called upon for cancelation. The report asserts that criminal acts were committed, making it clear the same is punishable under the criminal laws of Uganda, implying that the culprits of such fraudulent titling are now living on borrowed time because they could be arraigned in court and be required to appear before a judge or magistrate to explain themselves.
One thing is glaringly clear: those who had effected transactions selling and conveyancing over the same land purporting to be passing on good title, whereas they were not, are most likely going to face endless civil litigation, as those to whom they sold will soon be out demanding refunds of their hard-earned money, which now amounts to nothing because those who purported to sell to them had no good title to pass on.
Wealthy Kampalans have, in large numbers, been settling in the Bulindo neighborhood, and many of them are beginning to be told they actually bought air. Such coned Ugandans can’t have any remedy against Wagumbulizi. Their only remedy is to sue the bafers who sold to them using fraudulent land titles. It’s against those that they can have a sustainable claim in any court of law, and not against Wagumbulizi, who was merely a victim of fraudulent titling and land conveyancing.
The recall and cancelation of all those fraudulently issued land titles, which both Minister Sam Mayanja and Kira area RDC Naboth Kagoro have extensively written about notifying everybody about the same, has predictably caused land fraudsters behind all those sham transactions to come under immense pressure, as those whose money they took in billions, in vain, are already going after them, and this can only worsen. Ironically, some of these are influential actors in Kira Municipality with the capacity to raise campaign financing and impact voting patterns. This is how area mayor poor man Julius Mutebi (whose anti-Wagumbulizi stand has already been contradicted by fellow local council leaders, moreover, in writing) has found himself between a rock and a hard place.
He has had to find some way to get involved, only to end up giving false hope to those he is seeking to appease. Even when he is aware of the verification findings, because the Lands Ministry has been copying him in on all the correspondences, Julius Mutebi has continued to be on a frolic of his own while deceptively duping victims and some of the fraudsters, who knowingly engaged in fraudulent land conveyancing, that media houses from Kampala can be duped to amplify stage-managed scenes of people shedding crocodile tears while portraying themselves as victims of land grabbing, which actually isn’t the case.
Being a politician seeking reelection, Mutebi (who has governed Kira since 2016) has resorted to playing to the gallery while having his falsehoods amplified by the media, in the hope that the president gets to see and intervene in a way that enables the well-known fraudsters to become entitled to some compensation from the state, maybe through the Land Fund. Such antics ought to work for Mutebi, who hopes it can create for him some media visibility while boosting his clearly very plummeting reelection chances. He has already been Kira Mayor for 10 years, and in 2026, he will be seeking a 3rd term. Currently many residents, including those from NUP, which he opportunistically joined on the eve of the 2021 elections, consider him damaged goods and therefore unelectable for purposes of 2026.
Prolonged incumbency always hurts such incumbents and complicates their reelection efforts, and this clearly explains why Julius Mutebi has become so desperate to the extent of overlooking surveying, verification, and boundary-opening findings even when his own representatives and fellow leaders in Kira, and all the other stakeholders, participated and were 100% involved in the exercise, which lasted for close to a full year.
Mayanja, like the Commissioner of Land Registration, the RDC, and the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, has all written to him sharing clear findings, but reelection-seeking Julius Mutebi has remained obstinate simply because he thinks deception and misleading those he leads is how he will secure reelection. He ought to know better because he has been in Kira, originally as a resident and later on as a leader, long enough. He actually knows all the truth about the Bulindo land saga, but the desire to increase his reelection chances has blinded him.
