Tycoon Exposes Police, Lands Officials On Kira Land Fight

By Staff Writer

A city landlord, 71, has rushed to State House accusing the Police of conniving with land grabbers with intent to take his land.

In his petition presented to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, Hezekiah Mukiibi, the owner of Majorine Vocational and Business Institute wants 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 claims 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 notes in his petition to state house.

The land in contention is comprised in Kyadondo Block 185 Plots; 749, 8152, 8153, 508, 755 and 7427 at Namugongo, Kira-Kito zone in Wakiso district.

BACKGROUND

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.

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.

Through his petition therefore, Mukiibi wants state house to come to his rescue and have all the persons implicated in the saga fully held accountable.