Over 1700 residents of Ntawo village in Mukono Municipality are living in fear of losing their land to Uganda Christian University (UCU) . This is due to the frequent eviction notifications from agents of UCU reminding them to vacate the land of which they claim that they have stayed in for many years.
Through these agents the residents have been blocked from carrying out any permanent development like construction of houses on this land. According to Mr Kazibwe Peter a resident of Ntawo, everyone that has refused to obey the notifications, has been arrested.
“One day I was arrested and I spent three days in custody, they released me without any charges.” Kazibwe said.
“Back in 1912, this land was donated to the Church of Uganda to construct the University when it was known as Bishop Turker Theological College by the late Hamu Mukasa who was a county chief of Kyagwe and also to grow crops that will provide food to the students.” One of the UCU staff members said of the matter.
It is noted that in the recent years, UCU has reported cases of land grabbing where over 800 squatters and land grabbers have occupied about 200 acres of UCU’s land.
UCU sought advice from the land commission which is led by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire and visited the place to investigate on what was taking place, it was discovered that the exact place had a bigger number of population of residents more than was reported by UCU.
However, Mr. Kakembo Jamil, the Mukono Central Division Chairperson, requested the residents to stay calm and continue to be aware of any form of intimidation and thus continue practicing their daily routines because Mukono leadership is ready to defend their rights as far as the land wrangles are concerned.
