From Karangwa to Ntaganda: Why hatred against the Banyarwanda is boiling in Museveni’s Uganda: NTAGANDA STRIKES AGAIN: Tycoon Dragged To Court For Grabbing Bat Valley Land

 

NTAGANDA STRIKES AGAIN: Tycoon Dragged To Court For Grabbing Bat Valley Land…

https://www.thegrapevine.co.ug/ntaganda-strikes-again-tycoon-dragged-to-court-for-grabbing-bat-valley-land/  

September 10, 2021

 

Controversial City Tycoon Ephraim Ntaganda has been dragged to the High Court Civil Division over grabbing Bat Valley land.

In a suit before Justice Simon Zirintuusa, Damani Lyoti and Herm Damani, who are directors and shareholders of Bat Valley Bar and Restaurant, they accused Ntaganda and a one Ivan Byaruhanga of trespassing on their land registered on Plot 2, Semuliki Walk, LRV 4464, Folio 23.

The plaintiffs told Court that they were registered on the said land in 1994 on a lease which was extended to 2025 by the Directorate of Physical Planning with recommendation from the secretary Kampala District Land Board.

To their surprise, on 29th May 2021, they received a phone call from their staff that there was a stranger who stormed their land at night, overpowered the security guards and put a container in an attempt to fence it off using iron sheets.

“The respondents forcefully destroyed properties and even deployed private security guards from KPI security. They also erected signs purporting re-entry by the Kampala District Land Board. This was immediately reported to Wandegeya police station, with file reference 17/28/08/21 for Criminal trespass,” the plaintiff reads in parts.

They further stated that Ntaganda confronted them and threatened them that they will have it rough if they didn’t leave his land which he owned together with Byaruhanga.

Bat Valley Restaurant staff after being evicted from their restaurant

When they asked him for documents, he only showed them the container which he forcefully placed on their land.

“We subsequently found out that another Title had been issued on 27th of August 2021 to a one Ivan Byaruhanga in consideration of Shs. 142,720,000. This is for one Acre of Land in the middle of Kampala City. We have been given no notice or warning to defend our position in the face of re-entry,” plaintiffs stated.

They told Court that the respondents fraudulently transferred the land title to Buko Minerals and Oil Limited in the names of Augustine Rutaganda, Allan Muzima, Barbara Nalubega who were listed as the shareholders of the said company on 2^nd September 2021.

They told the Court that because they wanted to save their land, they placed a caveat on it.

In a defense he filed at the same court, Ntaganda said that he acquired the lease on the land on 27^th August 2021 from Kampala District Land Board who are in charge of all public land under Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).

Last week, Justice Ziruntuusa issued an interim order staying the status quo until the matter is disposed of.

The judge set 14^th of September 2021 to kick off the hearing of the matter.

The name Ntaganda is synonymous with land grabbing in Kampala.

In 2018, Ntaganda was detained on orders of the Land Probe Commission Chairperson Justice Catherine Bamugemereire to explain how he convinced the Commissioner Land Registrar to acquire what she said were illegal titles in wetlands and forest reserve land owned by government.

Ntaganda had appeared before the Commission on allegations that it was him who sold the 350 acres of Kajjansi Forest Reserve to a one Eria Mubiru at $2.5 million (Sh9bn).

Ntaganda was also sighted in the grabbing of East Kololo Primary School land along Naguru by-pass together with tycoon Muhamood Bharwani of Bharwani group of companies and Francis Kakumba of prestigious apartments limited.

 

By Sengooba Alirabaki

 

Bwanika Warns Land Grabbers in Kayunga

https://ugandaradionetwork.net/story/bwanika-warns-land-grabbers-in-kayunga

Aldon Walukamba

23 Nov 2015 

 

People\'s Development Party (PDP) presidential candidate Dr. Abed Bwanika warns people who intimidate locals and grab land from them in Kayunga.

Bwanika says he will deal with such people if he is voted into office. He accuses such people of leading to poverty in the country by disrupting economic activity in Kayunga by evicting people.

Bwanika cited Moses Karangwa, the Kayunga district National Resistance Movement party chairman, who he accused of evicting people from their land.

According to Bwanika, people who grab land can not be tolerated and promised to allow the affected people to decide what they want to do with their land.

Speaking to Uganda radio Network on phone, Karangwa said Bwanika should leave him out of his campaigns, and focus on his rivals in the presidential race.

Bwanika was Monday afternoon campaigning in Kayunga district.

Addressing supporters at Kayunga Taxi Park, Bwanika urged Ugandans to scrutinize candidates before the 2016 elections, so that they choose people who will support development.  

Land Grab Scandals Haunt Karangwa out of NRM Race

https://witness.co.ug/land-grab-scandals-haunt-karangwa-out-of-nrm-race/  

 

August 17, 2020 SADAB KITATTA  

 

 

Moses Karangwa, the outgoing Kayunga NRM district chairperson, is one of the candidates that the ruling party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) has asked to quit the race over integrity concerns.

Karangwa is one of the candidates that were interested to join NRM’s topmost policy organ, CEC, as vice-chairperson for the central.
However, his candidature attracted several petitions linking him to land grab scandals in various parts of the country.

He was in the race with former minister, Hajji Abdul Nadduli, businessman Muhammad Kibedi Nsegumire, little known John Magaro and Tourism state minister Godfrey Kiwanda Ssuubi.

When the list was presented before CEC for vetting last Wednesday, Nadduli was asked by his colleagues at CEC to quit the race on account of his old age.

According to sources, the NRM top brass considered the threat posed by the generational political card being popularized by Kyadondo East MP and presidential aspirant, Robert Kyagulanyi.

“The party needs people who can counter Kyagulanyi, to do that, we need young and energetic people who will be able to run around to mobilise,” a source said.

For Karangwa, sources said, some members of CEC expressed discomfort in having him joining the organ because of his name always appearing in land grabbing allegations in several parts of the country.

For instance in February this year, his name was mentioned in connection to the killing of a 33-year-old man at Kanyogoga in Butoloogo sub-county, Mubende district.

The deceased, Vincent Karemera, was tortured to death by security guards attached to Karangwa’s security firm – Skariatic Group that he deployed in the area to evict people off the land.

NRM’s deputy secretary-general, Richard Todwong confirmed at the weekend that Karangwa is one of the candidates that the party leadership was engaging to quit the race.

“There are so many issues around his name. He is involved in many things, he is in leadership in Kayunga and Jinja, but there are also other issues like in Mubende and elsewhere,” Todwong said.

“We mind about the integrity of the party… There are yardsticks we use to vet people who want to be leaders in the party,” he added.

The NRM will hold the National Delegates Conference from August 19-20 at the district level in which new party leaders will be elected. 

 

 

Nantaba told: You will die like Kaweesi

https://observer.ug/news/headlines/62478-nantaba-told-you-will-die-like-kaweesi

October 30, 2019

 

Written by BAKER BATTE

 

From March 24, 2019, when a police officer shot and killed 40-year-old Ronald Ssebulime, accused of trailing, with intent to kill minister IDAH ERIOSI NANTABA, she has told bits and pieces of her side of the story.

Ssebulime was summarily executed in broad daylight and Nantaba insists the man was killed to shut him up though some claim he was a victim of mistaken identity. When she finally tells her full side of the story— when she reveals all the sordid details and finally connects the dots –the country will probably get a full portrait of who the real mafia is in this country and how it operates.

In another one-page missive emailed to The Observer on Monday, Nantaba, the minister of state for Information and Information Technology and National Guidance, claims a very respected army general in the country who she cannot dare name publicly and some Special Forces Command soldiers are bankrolling her political nemesis in Kayunga, Moses Karangwa, to neutralize her.

She says calling Karangwa her political rival is a ruse being used to veil the gentleman’s evil deeds. She says the real beef between the two stems from her determination to fight land grabbing not only in Kayunga district but across the country.

“These land grabbers upon realizing that I was preparing to unseat the NRM chairperson [Kayunga district], they also asked Karangwa to contest for the same position so as to disguise the land grabbing fight for a political one. Almost everyone believes that the war between me and Karangwa is a political one. That is how mafias fight...” Nantaba writes.

Below is the full missive translated by Baker Batte Lule into English for clarity

KANTABA’S FULL MISSIVE

Karangwa has powerful people, military generals who are backing his land grabs not only in Kayunga but in the whole country.

There are some Special Forces Command [SFC] officers; one called Charity and the other Akampulira who for a long time have been storming my home. One time they invaded my home with soldiers and guns. One soldier in plainclothes told my inquisitive neighbor, who asked to know what soldiers wanted from me with all those guns, – that I was also going to die like [Andrew Felix] Kaweesi [the former Assistant Inspector General of Police] killed near his home in 2017].

Frightened, my neighbor rushed and told me what the soldier had said. We spent two weeks indoors, fearing for our lives. Later they grabbed my bodyguard Tugume and beat him badly. I told the president what had happened to my bodyguard. He responded quickly and asked Sabiiti Muzeyi, now the deputy Inspector General of Police, where he had kept my bodyguard.

Sabiiti told the president that Tugume had assaulted some people in Kayunga in a village called Kirindi. The president asked me to take the two men to him who had been coached by Akampulira to lie that they had been assaulted by Tugume.

One confessed before the president that they were bringing trumped-up charges against Tugume so that he can be withdrawn from me and other bodyguards deployed. Later they deployed a police truck full of soldiers at my home in Busega led by a one Akandiho.

He told me he had been instructed to withdraw my bodyguards and give me others yet the president had already ordered Muzeyi to bring back Tugume. I refused to hand over Tugume. In the meantime, I looked for the president to tell him what had happened. He thanked me for refusing to hand over Tugume because it wasn’t him [president] who had sent Akandiho.

He told me to inform him right away if any other attempt is made to withdraw Tugume. Since then, they have never come back. I knew that generals used Karangwa when a policeman tried to shoot me in October 2015, at night at Kayunga police station.

It was Karangwa commanding the police to kill me. My brother Amos Lugoloobi [Ntenjeru North MP] asked me to go to the police station to see how the ballots were being handled. He had got information that Karangwa was trying to rig for those he supported.

When I arrived, Karangwa ordered the police to shoot me. One actually pointed the gun at me and tried to kill me but a certain man shouted; don’t kill the minister. Before I knew it, I was on the ground. Actually this policeman fired several shots in the air.

Later another police officer sprayed poison on me. I was hospitalized in Kenya for two months without people in the country knowing because they stopped the media from broadcasting the story. The time I spent as state minister for lands, I fought many big people among who was Karangwa who wanted to steal people’s land.

What surprised me most is that every time I tried to help those Karangwa had evicted from their land, I would receive a phone call from a general who this country fears a lot and who no one can dare talk about publicly who advised me to tell the president to put money in the Land Fund to pay for the land Karangwa had grabbed. Some of this land included that of Luyombya.

About 1,000 families had been evicted from that land. I informed the president about the general’s proposal and that is how I discovered that taxpayers’ money is used to compensate for grabbed land. I didn’t support this move and I asked the president to reject the suggestion. Some of my bodyguards were used to stop me from holding meetings about land, which had been grabbed from people.

These would connive with people in State House who tried to stop us from intervening in land grabbing cases. One of my bodyguards, name withheld, was often used to spy on my movements. Actually, impeccable sources told me that this person was in the same area on the same day Ssebulime was suspected of trying to kill me.

Currently, this person was transferred from Nakasero to Entebbe airport. I was told there was a plan to plant narcotics in my travel bag so I could be arrested on my way out of the country. One officer at the airport actually urged me to travel only with a handbag to avoid falling in trouble.

This is how I realized how well-placed the generals working with Karangwa are. There are many people who have lost their lives in Kayunga but Karangwa has never been charged with any offence...Now where is politics in all this?

WHAT KARANGWA SAYS ABOUT NANTABA

Both Nantaba and Karangwa control a group of politicians in Kayunga. Nantaba relies on her popular appeal while Karangwa leverages his cash. In 2015, when the two politicians competed for the position of NRM district chairperson, police had to fire tear gas to disperse their supporters. Karangwa won.

Karangwa in 2016 told The Observer on the sidelines of a rally that his dispute with Nantaba emanates from a business transaction the two had after the 2010 NRM primaries. He said he lent her some money for the 2011 campaigns.

“I gave her Shs 20 million. When I started demanding my money, she turned around and started saying that I was grabbing land. She just turned embarrassment into anger,” Karangwa said in Luganda. The dispute between these two bubbles to the surface every now and then. The NRM must find a way of resolving this protracted quarrel.