Compulsory Land Acquisition: The case of a Gamekeeper turned Poacher

Bishop Desmond Tutu is quoted to have at one time said that, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray’. We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land”. That in summary is the story of land and property ownership, of those that are governing vis-à-vis those that are governed. That story of land being taken by those more superior continues to unfold before our eyes with little or no recourse. We only need to go back a century or so ago to remember how the land owners in Buganda and the rest of the country were brought to their knees as the British superiors dished out their land the way they favored. Wasn’t that the beginning of our land problems? Land has always been a very emotive issue and this should not spring a surprise in us, it is understandable. Its value appreciates with each passing day but besides that, sit and imagine that you wake up one day with nowhere to sit and belong, with no place to rest and be happy, to grow your food and eke a living. It is a sad tale that humanity should abhor with the greatest of passions.

Only last week the Deputy Attorney General, tabled The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2017 that seeks to give government the power to compulsorily acquire people’s land and deposit money in court where a property owner disputes valuation. The proposal also gives government power to take over possession immediately after the payment is made. This will seek to move away from the Supreme Court decision of Uganda National Roads Authority vs. Asumani Irumba where it was held that before the compulsory acquisition of land for the development for government projects is effected, the owner of the property must receive prompt payment of fair and adequate compensation. The Justices of the highest court in the land accordingly declared section 7 of the Land Acquisition Act unconstitutional in as far as it permitted the government to take possession of land upon making of an award of compensation but before payment. Should this Bill pass (which is most likely) I am afraid it may spell doom on the ordinary people of our beloved country.

The talk since the start of President Museveni’s fifth term of office has been the prospect of taking this country to middle status by the year 2020. Our per capita income is currently at about $780 and for us to get to $1036 which is the lowest per capita income for any country in middle-income, we need a growth rate of about 12% a year factoring in our population growth of 3% which brings the figure to 15%. The economy has to double from $26b to $47b in the next four years. With all that in mind the president issued strategic guidelines that will drive the country to a middle-income status and a good infrastructural network was top on the agenda. The facts show that 95% of cargo freight in Uganda is moved by road and according to a 2015 report on infrastructure and investment in Africa by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), poor infrastructure is slowing down the continent’s economic growth. With all that in mind it is conceivable that development has to take place, and it has to take place on land and part of it is owned by private individuals. The amendment may be a good one but for all purposes and intent I think it isn’t good for our country.

The government proposes that when there is dispute in valuation, the money be deposited in court as work goes on, on the disputed property. I think this would be unfair and inequitable on the side of the private owner because there is a possibility he/she may be left with nowhere to stand given that the money will not have been paid to them and the property will have been taken. These are people who may have nowhere to turn to at the end of the day. However that is not to say that development should not go on but I believe the capacity to care is what gives life its deepest significance; we cannot claim to be pursuing radical development plans at the expense of the people who gave you their mandate. The judicial process in Uganda is a long and tedious one, land cases take a very long time before being settled, is the suggestion then that one should be waiting for ten years before he gets compensated for what rightfully belongs to them? Instead of making such an amendment the government should have thought it wise to set up tribunals or special courts that listen to these disputes in a shorter period of time, say 30 days. There both parties will have scored.   

My other issue with this amendment is the extreme distrust that we have for the government of the day. For isn’t it said that a man who has messed up with your finger cannot be trusted with your arm. Media outlets are always carrying stories of massive and incessant land grabbing orchestrated by senior government officials, locals who have had government projects pass through their land have also been voicing their cries of how their promised payments have never materialized. If individuals cannot be compensated with a clear law of prior compensation in place then God forbid what will happen after it is no longer in place? The commission of inquiry set up a few months ago to look into matters of land has unearthed multitudinous cases of people, prominent or otherwise using the system to deprive the poor of their land. If it is this same system that is still going to be operational even after the passing of the Bill then Ugandans have a right to be worried. It is my worry and it is every Ugandans’ worry (atleast for those without power) that the new law may be misused or used to the advantage of the powerful to cause massive and spontaneous land grabbing and also spur widespread landlessness among Ugandans.

Project Article 102 (b): A Test to Our Democracy

One historian once lamented, the most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born- that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That is nonsense, in fact the opposite is true, leaders are made rather than born.

The test is here once more. It has been here before; in 1989 and 2005 and at both times we have let down democracy. The authors of the book Militarism and the Dilemma of Post-Colonial Statehood: The Case of Museveni’s Uganda opine that at two very critical junctures especially the 1989 and 2005, the NRM as a political group with a military base, failed the test they had set for themselves under point one of the Ten Point Programme, that is to say the restoration of democracy. It is on the basis of these two occasions that we seek to examine the quandary before us i.e. article 102 (b) of the Constitution (Age Limit)

For starters it is important to recall the ping-pong that played on before us in 1989 and 2005 respectively for us to be fair judges of history. When the NRA took over power in 1986, they set for themselves a timeframe in Legal Notice No. 1 that required them to have organised and ushered in civilian rule within four years. That never came to be and instead an extension was sought. A resignation in protest by Wasswa Zilitwawula from the NRC and a few voices of dissent were not enough to stand in their way. It is also important to note as Dr Busingye Kabumba, a Law Don at Makerere University always points out that the 1989 moment revealed futility of expecting that a political movement which had come to power by force of arms rather than elections, would voluntarily relinquish power on the basis of a promise made through a legal document issued by themselves. 5 years later a Constitution came into place and term limits were installed. Fast forward 2005, the story was no different, a bigger agenda set in and the term limits too were removed. The one statement that I can never forget from 2005 was the one made by the late Hon. Eriya Kategaya. At that time considered the President’s de facto number two, implored his childhood friend and colleague to seize the moment and be the first Ugandan president to peacefully hand over power. Eleven years after, these words make more sense than they did that time.

The framers of the 1995 Constitution in their wisdom thought that our country should not have a very old president (above75 years) and not a very young one either (below 35). The rationale for this was to be put candidly by H. E President Museveni himself 17 years after the coming into place of the Constitution while appearing on a local television. While there he said, “After 75 years the vigor is no longer there, one is no longer active and cannot be very efficient.” The two things that are visible from this proposed amendment are that first of all it is propagated as a selfish motive that is only targeting at keeping an individual in power and secondly it is not brought in good faith. Ugandans and the rest of the people would not suggest selfishness and individuality if say this proposal was mooted 5 or 10 years ago because then we would be able to objectively look at it and not aim at jostling to keep a septuagenarian president in power. The basic arguments that are being raised like article 102 being discriminatory seem flawed within themselves. What then is more discriminatory than minimum academic qualifications that one ought to have to run for the same office, what still is more discriminatory than setting certain fees that one should pay to be nominated as a candidate? These are only basic requirements and standards that are ever present in every free and democratic society. So it is only illogical for one to say that article 102 is discrimatory in as far as it sets an age limit for those running for the highest office in the land.

Margret Thatcher, when faced with the reality that her term as Prime Minister of Great Britain was drawing to a close, had this to say, “But there one more duty I have to perform, and that is to ensure that John Major is my successor. I want to believe that he is a man to secure and safeguard my legacy and to take our policies forward”. Maybe, and just maybe it may not be too late for our president to pick a lesson or two from this selfless statement. The best gift he can give to this country is ensuring a smooth transition of power that may as well make us forget the “necessary” evils that bedeviled his 3 decade rule.

That alone may not bring him in the league of the greats of Africa like Nelson Mandela of South Africa or the lesser celebrated Joachim Chissano of Mozambique but for the record he will be the first of the 8 Ugandan presidents to “seize the moment” as late Kategaya referred it to and handover power peacefully. That may save us in the least bloodshed or at worst a civil war that could plunge our mother country into a bottomless abyss. The great writer Chinua Achebe asks a fundamental question in his book, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, “Are we perpetually doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past because we are too stubborn to learn from them?” It is this question that is glaring hard in the faces of us Ugandans, and in the days, weeks and months to come it is one that will demand for a concrete answer.

FINDING THE LION IN ME

Today I celebrate my lifetime teammate, friend and brother, the President of the Makerere Law Society. I look back at that unfortunate incident of 9^th July 2013 as one dark day in his life but for all that was, we thank the good Lord. Blessings lie ahead.

(The article below appeared in the Ntare School F.6 Arts Year Book)

It rained heavily drop by drop, it drenched my clothes, I was reminded of my great friend in Ntare who once told me that “rain drenches all, it does not discriminate” for it fall on the just and the unjust. That was sometime in September 2013 at my new address in Nalya S.S

In my very own autobiography, “The Whispers of the Butterfly”, I am stuck by the vivid memory of Tuesday 9^th July  2013 when I trampled on my own destiny, when I made an awful choice that made me lose sight of my future momentarily. At around 11:30pm, I picked up the phone and as I dialed, the wisest and most unpredictable man in the den entered Mbaguta room 6 and my life changed.

The weeks that followed were painful not because of the reality that stared in my face that I would inevitably exit the gates of this great institution but the painful fact that I would depart from the lives of the young men who had impacted on my life, the brutal truth that I would not be President Debate Club, the harsh reality of having my dreams shattered and that as much as we wanted to , life had to move on for my close associates, for my beautiful fellowship and for my revered compatriots in the arena of leadership. It is those things that haunted me and they still do.

But like our great literary scholars have alluded to the imperishable scriptures, “A righteous man falls seven times but he rises up again”. I am now coming to grips with the fact that in the journey to greatness, we always need experiential knowledge, what I have observed in the past few months is that “we can never have all we need in life but we can use what we have to make this world a better place.” The facts are simple, we may not be together as the Arts fraternity, how we began is not how we stand, Brian and I may be under other skies but we are connected to the great faculty of Arts by ties that are invisible to the eye. We hold keys to achieving one other’s dreams and we stand strong to say that our struggles were not in vain; it is this realization that has given me reason to fight on and am humbled that you gave me an opportunity to correspond in the Artifact. Thanks to you all, I found the lion in me. The lion still roars as we reach for greater horizons.

 (KANSIIME MUKAMA TAREMWA)