Print

Historical Injustices and Colonial Legacy

TOC Previous page Parent page Next page

Origins

6.The advent of colonialism left a historical legacy structured around land relations and management. In the first place, colonialists introduced individualised ownership of property rights in land previously held either communally or the basis of sovereign trustees. In the process, an intricate system of political relationships was legitimized, a new system of property ownership intended to supersede existing indigenous land rights systems was super-imposed over the existing traditional systems of land management thus a duality in systems of property rights management and a multiplicity of land tenure systems. The time is now, for the policy to decide whether, a break from the colonial past is necessary or the accepted future lays in individualized land tenures systems.

7.In other parts of the country outside the kingdom areas, customary tenure was left to continue existing but the indigenous people were made tenants at will of the colonial government and thus customary tenure was not given a chance to evolve properly. A prudent decision has to be arrived at, whether to continue with multiple systems of land ownership (tenure) or to aspire for one tenure regime, in addition, the duality of management systems has to be harmonized, integrated or hybridized.

Mailo Land Tenure

8.Perhaps the most critical and challenging elements, courtesy of a colonial legacy, are to do with disentangling the multiple tenure rights and interests, overlapping in the same piece of land. At the time of creation of mailo and native freeholds, pre-existing private interests of smallholders under customary tenure, mainly usufruct (land use) rights were not legally recognized. This multi-layered structure of rights has become a defining characteristic of the complexity of contemporary land relations which exist today. It has been largely blamed for the escalating land conflicts and evictions in the central region. For the policy, the question lies in determining who holds superior rights over the other, the tenant or the landowner?

9.In addition, in case one of the interests has to be extinguished in order for the ancillary to subsist, the terms and mechanisms for this dissolution and transition (including the costs) must be defined in this policy. In the alternate, that the above multiple rights cannot be resolved in the immediate, the relationship between the registered land owners and the occupants, which has been the subject of legislative norm since 1928 under the Busuulu and Envujjo Law and the Ankole and Toro Landlord and Laws, has to be further considered to make it is harmonious and amicable.text

10.The landlord-tenant relationship as enacted under the Land Act, Cap 227 has become very controversial and the controversy resolves mainly around two issues: the rights conferred on the tenants and the rent payable. Given that the Land (Amendment) Bill, 2007 has encountered resistance from some quarters and has, thus, evolved into a contentious issue of its own, the policy has to review the structural problems which have continued to sour the landlord / tenant relationship and defied all previously-attempted solutions. The policy should come out with principles to guide legislation on the landlord/tenant relationship on registered land.

The 9,000 Square Miles

11. The Buganda Kingdom has been making persistent demand for the return of its public land, the so called ‘9000 square miles’, the 1500 square miles of forests, and the 160 square miles of official estates (including land at county and sub-county headquarters), which land was confiscated by the central government in 1967 and vested in the Uganda Land Commission.

12. The Traditional Rulers (Restitution of Assets and Properties) Act, 1993 which returned immediately some assets and properties specified in the schedule of the Act, made provision that the rest of properties and assets not included in the schedule to be returned following negotiations between the government and the traditional rulers. This matter has continued to strain the relationship between the government and the Buganda Kingdom as it resurfaces from time to time. It is a matter that the land policy must fix in terms of principles in the interest of achieving social harmony and social justice, given the commitments under the 1993 Statute.

The Kibaale Land Question

13.The historical Kibaale land question, which should have been fixed by the 1964 Referendum on the counties of Buyaga and Bugangaizi, has defied solutions time and again. It became a very contentious issue in the Constituent Assembly (1993-95) as the new Constitution of Uganda of 1995 was being debated. Over the years, the land issue in Kibaale has further been complicated by Government resettlement schemes in 1973 and 1992 respectively, and the incessant immigration and settlement by other non-indigenous Banyoro whom are referred to as “bafuruki”. What started off as a land question has steadily translated into a political question as the immigrants started gaining political ascendancy. The resentment has, in the recent past, raised political tensions and ethnic conflicts, which from time to time have turned violent.

14.Currently, the essence of the problem is: indigenous Banyoro are worried that they may never be able to rescue their ancestral land which is formally held by absentee Baganda landlords in mailo tenure that is now increasingly being taken over by the “bafuruki”. Additionally, public land in Kibaale land has suffered a similar fate. Since the passing of the Land Act 1998, the Government has paid off some absentee landlords, but due to limited budget allocations, the bigger part of the mailo land is yet to be bought out. Distribution and sharing of the re-possessed land is yet to be resolved. The Mubende Banyoro Committee is arguing that the re-possessed land should only be granted to the lawful occupants who are Banyoro. The land issue has been further complicated by the immigrants encroaching massively on public land in the form of forest reserves.

SourceHistory