Following the death of Senior Lawyer Peter Mulira, many rightly said that he had been a walking encyclopedia of Uganda’s constitutional and political system. Others have focused on his long, distinguished legal career.
However, Peter Mulira, who died at the age of 85, played a critical role in the debate about the land question, often uncompromising whenever the Mailo Land Tenure system appeared to be under attack.
As a controversial defender of Mailo land in Buganda, Peter Muliira earned love and hatred in equal measure, adored by landlords for his boldness and scorned by those who wished to abolish Mailo land for his insistence that it was still necessary.
One would argue that he was doing so for selfish reasons, having been one of the land lords with Mail Land in Buganda. In his characteristic soft voice, Muliira would defend this tenure system with a historic and legal argument.
He would resort to the pen, making his opinion known through newspaper columns in the Monitor and the New Vision.
Article 237 of the 1995 Constitution vests land in the citizens of Uganda, and it specifies four systems of land holding: customary, leasehold, mailo, and freehold. In 2007, the government came up with a proposal to amend the Land Act 1997 with the Land Act (amendment) Bill 2007.
The proponents of the Bill said they were trying to address the eviction of bibanja holders, one of the biggest land problems at the time. Peter Muliira, in an article in the government-owned New Vision newspaper that “The Bill is a sinister motive by the government to steal Buganda land”.
He then went to put on paper his argument against the criminalization of land disputes, and suggested the need for research to identify the circumstances surrounding the eviction of tenants.
Muliira would openly rebuke whoever would argue that the Mailo land and customary land were outdated or “primitive.” “When you talk about abolishing Mailo land, you don’t know what you are talking about.” Said Mulira.
He said there were such attempts in the 1955 inquiry into land ownership, where communities deliberately chose to retain customary systems over formal titling. “Most districts said no… They preferred their customary rules, and things worked out very well.”
” Today, we have the Land Act, which allows no African citizens to own that land as well. So that is why I’m arguing that Mailo land is no longer there. We have freehold,” he argued. He said his argument was rooted in the first land law in Uganda, dating as far back as 1897.
“I want to go on record that the system that the British left to us is 10% perfect. But it is because of the corrupt officials who have corrupted it. That is why we have problems. You can not improve on that system,” he said, “You can only make sure that you get rid of the corrupt people who corrupt it”
Mulira made that suggestion when he was invited to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters. Chaired by Lady Justice Catherine Bamugemereire, the Commission inquired into the effectiveness of Laws, Policies, and Processes of land Acquisition, land administration, land management, and Land Registration in Uganda – The Land Inquiry 2017.
The Commission handed its report to President Museveni in 2020. Five years later, Peter Mulira died without knowing whether his views were taken into consideration or if they were, why no action was taken.
The report was not made public, and no reforms have taken place since then. No cabinet white paper about it. On land management and related conflicts, Peter Mulira once stated that he was frustrated by “Endless Talk.”
“We came up with good recommendations, and so on and so forth. And the question is, one, why do we have all these workshops? Is there a failure on the part of the government to do its work, and are we leaving it to the civil society to do it for it? And two, is there a need for us to go on making recommendations which are not implemented, or should we now turn to the issue of implementation?” Mulira once asked at a workshop in Kampala.
He believed that the land crises in Uganda were not due to a lack of ideas but to the failure to take action on already well-understood solutions. At such a meeting, his arguments were not just legal; they were historical, philosophical, and at times very confrontational.
He consistently argued that land tenure systems across Uganda were not accidental, but carefully evolved systems rooted in custom and community. “They were created by our ancestors. The land tenures in Acholi, in Buganda, in Teso, in Kigezi, in Bunyoro, in Toro, in West Nile are all different. And people are used to them. When you go to Acholi land, people know how to access land according to their customary rules,” he argued.
“When you go to Teso, they know that if you belong to this clan, you approach land accessibility in this or that way. And so on and so forth. When you come to Buganda, these systems were there, but we are saying that they are primitive. So, we come here and come up with these very sophisticated ideas,”
He energetically argued and rejected the idea of a one-size-fits-all land law, suggesting the need to learn how land is owned and accessed under different customs.
Mulira did not shy away from confronting the politically sensitive issue of land grabbing.
“Simple people don’t grab land. Land is grabbed by people who get big money… and then go on grabbing more land.”
At workshops and while appearing before the Commission of Inquiry into land matters, Mulira suggested that land administrators return to principles that included identifying true land ownership, understanding historical systems, and building reforms from the ground up, not imposing abstract solutions from above-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com.
