In a fiery response to long-standing accusations, Internal Affairs Minister Gen. Kahinda Otafiire has firmly denied claims that he grabbed government land in Njeru Municipality, Buikwe District, branding the allegations as politically motivated and legally baseless.
Otafiire, who has faced repeated criticism from politicians including Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda and Leader of the Opposition Joel Ssenyonyi, challenged his accusers to consult the Attorney General.
“Those who are always accusing me of grabbing government land, why don’t you ask the Attorney General why, in eight years, he has never summoned me to court?” Otafiire posed rhetorically during a recent media interaction.
At the center of the controversy is a sprawling piece of land in Njeru long referred to as the Njeru Stock Farm whose ownership has been fiercely contested for over a decade.
IGG Report Clears Otafiire
In a major twist, a report from the Inspectorate of Government (IGG) appears to support Otafiire’s stance.
According to the report, which reviewed a 2014 complaint about the Njeru land saga, the contested acreage was legally acquired through private mailo land transactions not grabbed. The land, once part of the expansive Njeru Stock Farm, had gone through a complex series of sub-leases and reentries by private landlords after Njeru Town Council failed to meet its financial obligations.
The IGG noted that the Ministry of Agriculture, while having used and even extended the stock farm over the years, had not lawfully acquired or maintained ownership of the full land as claimed.
The findings further established that: The Uganda Protectorate Government had leased portions of land from the Ham Mukasa estate in 1948, which were later transferred to Njeru Town Council.
In 1969, 306 acres were sub-leased to the Ministry of Agriculture for livestock purposes, later extended by 1,000 acres.
Over time, financial disputes, failure to pay ground rent, and court judgments led to parts of the land reverting to original landlords.
By 2009, a court order facilitated the re-registration of key plots under Fredrick Kato Lukwajju and Christopher Lule, administrators of the estates of Enoka Sebowa and Gusite Seruwo.
This is the legal pathway through which Gen. Otafiire acquired Block 295 Plots 280 and 283, according to official land records and court-backed transfers.
A Tangled Web of Sub-Leases, Court Battles & Quiet Acquisitions
The report details how Njeru Town Council had, over the years, allocated, leased, and even sold land to various individuals often without clarity on ownership rights. Former town council officials, including Paul Musoke and Hajira Meme, were found to have allocated plots to themselves or their associates.
A separate Ministry of Agriculture audit had revealed that the original 750-acre stock farm had shrunk to 652 acres, with over 188 acres unaccounted for a discrepancy linked to illegal allocations by town council officials.
The court judgments cited in the report paint a picture of bureaucratic mismanagement, with plots slipping through the government’s fingers as private claimants, backed by historical rights and legal victories, reclaimed land that had long been considered public.
“Njeru Town Council lost all rights over several plots… the land reverted to the landlords following the court’s pronouncements,” noted Deputy IGG Mariam Wangadya in an official communication dated April 6, 2018.
Otafiire: I’m a Lawful Buyer, Not a Grabber
Gen. Otafiire has maintained that he bought the land in question under a willing buyer–willing seller arrangement, presenting documents to Parliament in 2019 to support his case.
“This was private mailo land, not government land. Government wrongly superimposed itself over private ownership. I stepped in and bought what was legally available,” he argued.
With multiple court rulings, land titles, and the IGG’s report seemingly backing his claims, Otafiire appears poised to weather the storm of political criticism unless new legal challenges emerge.
