

By Richard Kintu
A group of top detectives are in trouble for colluding with a notorious city land grabber.
According
to Police instructions issued to the Criminal Intelligence Directorate
by the IGP’s office on March 29, 2021, the cops in hot soup include: SSP
Dennis Namuwoza, SSP Michael Musane, D/SP Muhumuza Benard and D/ASP
Namatovu Judith.
As per the instructions, the above cops have been
put up for investigations by the IGP’s office over allegations of
possible collusion with a one Yusuf Ssemakula to frustrate justice for
Mzee Hezekiah Mukiibi of Namugongo in Kira Municipality, Wakiso
district.
Police and records show that Mukiibi rushed to Police and
courts to help him stop Ssemakula from grabbing his land comprised at
Namugongo in Block 185 Plots 8151, 8152, 8153 and 8154 which are
formerly Plots 385 and plot 2458 respectively.
It is said that the
said officers were assigned to investigate the case. However, they
aggravated matters when they allegedly teamed up with Ssemakula to
frustrate Mukiibi’s right of quiet possession of his property.
Ironically,
this was done in total disregard of facts in the initial investigations
which exonerated Mukiibi of any wrongdoing. To facilitate their folly,
the officers somehow aided the disappearance of eight files concerning
this case. This matter was even raised by the DPP who on March 24, 2016,
complained that the disappearance of the files as well as the multiple
opening of several cases in different police stations on the same matter
frustrated evidence.
Together with the said officers, the IGP also
wants seasoned land fraudster Ssemakula alias Nassif traced wherever he
is and arrested for prosecution.
Genesis
According to
Mukiibi’s lawyers of Barnabas D.K Dyadi & Co. Advocates, Mukiibi’s
battle with his accusers started in 2012 when he dragged to the Police
CID headquarters in Kibuli accusing him (Mukiibi) of fraudulent transfer
of land titles for the land on which he says he has stayed for over 30
years.
One of the cases was filed vide reference CID HQS LPPU GEF
87-2012, a one Templar Bisase Snr, alleged that Mukiibi fraudulently
took over land belonging to late Kisosonkole’s estate for whom he
worked for as surveyor.
In another case filed vide SD 53/09/10/2015
of Kira Division Police, a one Alice Nabitosi through her daughter
Florence Ziribagwa accused Mukiibi of grabbing two acres of land. In her
statement, Nabitosi alleges that having been a squatter on Mukiibi’s
land, the latter was to give her 4 acres of the land on which she said
at the time Mukiibi wanted to develop it.
However, Nabitosi says
Mukiibi only gave her two acres instead of four. However, a January 29,
2021 opinion by the DPP has since ordered Nabitosi against ever staking
claim over this land. This was after she was found to have made
fraudulent claims.
NO EVIDENCE Vs MUKIIBI
Details obtained
from police investigations and court records shows that the above cases
and other cases against Mukiibi were found fictitious and lacking in
truth and substance.
The first case filed at Kibuli, Odumbi James
Owere, the assistant director of public prosecutions on January 29,
2016, ruled that the charges against Mukiibi be dropped and the file
closed because there was no clear record of what happened between him
and Kisosonkole therefore police and court could not base their
investigations on mere empty allegations by Bisase (the complainant).
Mukiibi’s
accusers would be dealt another blow when in the second case filed at
Kira Police Division, the DPP still ruled that the complaint by Nabitosi
lacked merit and therefore called for closure and put away of the file.
He further warned Nabitosi against making false allegations in future
lest she is jailed for giving false information to a public officer
contrary to Section 115(c) of the Penal Code Act.
25 CHARGES Vs MUKIIBI
Further
evidence seen by The Second Opinion show that despite Mukiibi’s
exoneration and clearance by the DPP, his accusers somehow opened up a
scores of similar cases against him. He was however expeditiously
arraigned in court to answer the same charges.
For instance, we have
established that between October 2018 and January 2019, the police filed
shocking 25 cases rotating around land grabbing, criminal trespass and
obtaining title by false pretence against Mukiibi and his children.
All the cases are sanctioned by the Nakawa Regional Office led by senior state attorney Baxter David Bakibinga.
In
one of these cases filed in 2016 vide HCCS No. 817 of 2016, Nabitosi
Alice and her grandson Alex Mutebi connived with Josephus R. Bisase and
Templar Bisase and entered a consent judgment declaring the former pair
as bonafide occupants of an unspecified “suit kibanja”. In their plaint,
the plaintiffs purported that the defendants aided Mukiibi to take
their land yet he had been hired to merely survey it.
To prove their
point, they (defendants) handpicked a one Yusuf Ssemakula who
impersonated Emmanuel Muganga, an advocate from Murumba & Matsiko
Advocates.
However, later, investigations from the Chief registrar,
the Law Council and Uganda Law society all showed that the purported
case was a sham because not only was the alleged advocate a fake one but
the said law firm had also long ceased to exist.
Further,
established that Dolphe Tefiro Bisase Kisosonkole, the then surviving
administrator for the Kisosonkole estate had, in an inventory filed with
the high court on October 12, 2008, closed the estate. This was on
grounds that he had duly distributed the estate and given each
child/beneficiary his share satisfactorily. Hence, he had relinquished
his powers of administration. Court therefore ruled that talk of the
“administrators” of such an estate was null and void.
Against the
above background, on September 27, 2016, the DPP advised Mukiibi’s
accusers to drop the criminal cases against him and instead, if
necessary, seek civil redress with him.
“..We are of the view that
pursuit of further investigations would not be able to achieve much. The
complainants be advised to pursue civil remedies if they so wish, since
verdicts can be returned on a preponderance of evidence. Close case
file and put away…” the DPP stated.
In his 22-page petition to the
Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters, Mukiibi says that in an attempt
to toe the civil line as advised by the DPP, his tormentors omitted him
from the proceedings and instead did everything behind his back and
later executed the accruing consent judgments/decrees against him
without any bailiffs or court warrants. Mukiibi particularly says that
his tormentors, basing on letters from his accusers’ lawyers of Alaka
& Co. Advocates, turned to officials at Wakiso land offices who,
with support from Land Police Protection Unit, started creating fake
plots and land titles on his land without his consent.
LANDS OFFICIALS USED IN DOUBLE PLOTTING
In
one of the connivances, Wakiso Land official, Joseph Batume (District
Staff Surveyor) and a one Ojara (cartographer), double plotted his land,
creating plot 12256 out of his Plot 754.
“They also concluded that
my own Block 185 Plot No. 386 be replaced by plot 548 and that my plot
currently registered in the name of Majorine Vocational & Business
Institute be renumbered “12256”. Further that the proprietor be
indicated as the estate of the Late KLB Kisonsonkole in my place. The
reports also strangely accorded this invented plot 12256, acreage of 7
acres. What was even more disturbing to me is that at the time when the
strange proposal to renumber my Plot No. 754 was made, I had already
subdivided the plot into 10 (ten) plot Nos. 114-11410. In other words,
technically, plot No. 754 no longer existed,” Mukiibi revealed in the
petition.
Peninah Kalenge, Natasha Kalenge, Juma Kayondo, Yusuf
Semakula, Daisy Nantongo, Lule Kamoga, Ruthmans Ssegawa and Michael
Kintu alias Mike are part of the claimants who ‘concocted’ cases with
the sole aim of frustrating Mukiibi on his own land. It is said these
were aided and covered by the above implicated officers who are now
being investigated over the same.
State House Comes In
Records
show that in an attempt to save himself from these fraudsters, Mukiibi
even rushed to State House for help. In his petition to the State House
Anti-Corruption Unit, Hezekiah Mukiibi, the owner of Majorine Vocational
and Business Institute asked State House to intervene in a protracted
land wrangle that he has battled for years now with a group of claimants
and the purported administrators of the estate of Kupuliyano Lufo
Bisase Kisosonkole (RIP) of Namugongo in Kira, Wakiso district.
Mukiibi
claimed that following years of court proceedings, the case would by
now have been disposed of in his favor had it not been for deliberate
and continued manipulations by high ranking officers that are working
together with senior police officers, judicial officers and Lands
Ministry officials.
“We humbly present the instant complaint
bordering suspicion of corruption, abuse of power and office by the
Principal State Attorney (PSA), Deputy Regional Officer, Nakawa, David
Baxter Bakibinga, the Cartographer – Wakiso, Ojera Moses, the Commandant
Land Protection Police Unit, SSP Mutungi Charles, the Personal
Assistant (P.A) to the Inspector General of Police SSP Milondo Fred, the
regional, Criminal Investigations Department CID Commander KMP/East,
D/SP Muhumuza Benard, ASP Asiimwe Richard and ASP Kiribwa Shifah
respectively,” Mukiibi’s lawyers noted in his petition to state house.
Watch this space!