Land grabbing: Kayihura suspends senior police officers in Mubende district

The Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura has suspended four senior police officers in Mubende district for their involvement in land grabbing scandals.
The officers include the Regional Police Commander (RPC) for Wamala, Christopher Barugahare, the Officer-in-charge of Criminal Investigations (OC CID), Dauda Swalit, the Officer-in-charge (OC) of Lands, Hakeem Mukama, and the Acting District Police Commander (DPC), Charles Magola.
Gen. Kayihura was Friday attending a meeting called by State Minister for Kampala Capital City Authority, Benny Namugwanya and the State Minister for Lands, Persis Namuganza at Butorogo, Buwekula sub-county to seek solutions to the growing cases of illegal land evictions.
The villagers who attended the meeting accused a woman known as Princess Naava of illegally evicting them from their land with the support of some of police officers. The land is located in Kilwanyi village in Butorogo sub-county.
Having listened to the villagers’ pleas, Gen. Kayihura immediately suspended the officers and promised to remain in the area for all next week to apprehend culprits.
A recent report on land grabbing in the district accused some officers of the army, police and the judiciary as perpetrators of violent displacement of residents and land grabbing in the district.
The report conducted by WitnessRadio.org, a non-governmental organisation documented land conflicts in Uganda and said that UPDF officers and police connived with private investors to evict people from the sub-counties of Kitumbi, Bukuyu, Madadu and Nalutuntu.
The authors said money, guns and power were responsible for the grabbing of over 1,975, 834 hectares of land affecting 265, 502 households in Mubende between September 2016 and November 2017.
Mubende district, endowed with minerals like gold is among the districts in Uganda with the most cases of land grabbing. Some cases are currently before the ongoing commission of inquiry set up by President Yoweri Museveni last year.