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Before the NRM government came to power, agriculture was a highly promising sector, enabling the majority of the population to cultivate crops for personal consumption and sale, thus serving as a source of income.
However, as the government maintained its prolonged rule, the population was neglected. The government officials, after accumulating significant wealth, began laundering their money by purchasing large tracts of land, while others resorted to land grabbing.
Looking ahead, we will scrutinise how the land and property management business attracted unscrupulous individuals. In the early 2000s, a man named Patrick Kasulu established a property company called Property Masters.
This venture served as a revelation to the corrupt officials in government. Initially, he engaged with ordinary citizens, but it is probable that before long, greed overtook him, leading him to collaborate with government mafias, unaware that this would lead to his downfall.
Despite his exit from the once- flourishing business, many individuals had acquired the necessary skills for manipulation, and those within the government were keen to fund the venture, either directly or through intermediaries. This marked the beginning of difficulties for farmers and the general population.
Before we delve deeper, it is crucial to pose an important question: whose land is it? When the real estate market began to flourish, many individuals lacked land titles, which was one of the initial tactics employed by property agents, often referred to as property masters.
They would assure landowners that they would facilitate the processing of land titles, and through the involvement of unethical land officials, they rendered the process of obtaining a land title excessively challenging for the average person.
This scheme attracted corrupt and greedy government officials, who became eager buyers of such land. With a network of land officials, chairpersons, police officers, resident district commissioners, lawyers and other professionals, it was only a matter of time before farmers would lose their land.
A powerful individual or a dubious company, often associated with security services or the political elite, would lay claim to a vast area of land, frequently using fraudulent titles. Local council chairpersons and land registry officials, either bribed or coerced, authenticate these documents.
Following this, enforcers, usually police or private security personnel, come to harass, intimidate, and eventually evict families. It is evident that in Uganda, while the law is documented, justice is often treated as a commodity available only to those who can afford it.
The underprivileged individuals find themselves entangled in legal battles for the entirety of their lives, whereas the wealthy are shielded by their political connections. Furthermore, under the facade of negotiating with squatters, these property agents often misappropriated land titles and sold them to powerful buyers within the government, who were more than willing to confront the squatters.
This is how some individuals managed to acquire vast tracts of land in square miles. In many instances, these unscrupulous estate agents have frequently been shielded by individuals within the government, with many of them possessing photographs taken with the president, suggesting they have ties to the first family.
This is how they have succeeded in unlawfully acquiring land. For instance, a well-known estate agent operates an office near Wandegeya, and if the general public were invited, numerous individuals would step forward to admit that they have been swindled by this property agent.
This particular estate agent, similar to numerous others, in conjunction with greedy government barbarians, have deprived our nation of the essential land necessary to support agriculture.
We live in a country where agriculture is regarded as a primary economic activity, serving as the bedrock of our economy; however, food insecurity continues to be a pressing issue. Land grabbing is not an arbitrary crime.
It is a deliberate and systematic process in which influential and crooked individuals systematically strip the underprivileged of their only resource. This situation reflects a failure in the long-term agricultural and land policy.
Decades after the collapse of the state-controlled marketing boards that once guaranteed stable prices, farmers are now exposed to a predatory private market. Programs such as NAADS and the Parish Development Model (PDM), which are touted as drivers of agricultural modernization, have effectively been repurposed into tools of political favouritism.
The result is a deteriorating cycle of poverty and displacement. Families that once fed the nation now find themselves in destitution, migrating to urban slums without any skills, while fertile land becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of a powerful minority, who typically engage in large-scale agribusiness operations for the international markets they have secured through their connections, or often enclose vacant land with minor activities to ensure its safety.
The question, whose land is it? is confronted with a harsh reality: it is owned by those who have the power to take it.
The writer is a political analyst and a student of LLB Law with Politics, Cardiff University.
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