By KT Reporters
In the late 2010s, a crowd at Kasokoso during a community meeting got agitated and beat up then Kira Municipality Mayor Mamerito Mugerwa. They left him for dead and all this melee happened in the presence of many big-name political leaders including Rose Sseninde who was the Woman MP Wakiso district at that time. Several vehicles were torched as the mob accused the GoU of refusing to protect them against land grabbing back then by National Housing & Construction Corporation, which was government-owned.
Since that time, that Kasokoso neighborhood became synonymous with hostile reception for pro-establishment politicians. It became clear this was an indisputable bastion for the opposition and more so Kira Municipality MP Semujju Nganda who has served as the area legislator since the year 2011.
But this week on Thursday, State Minister for Lands Dr. Sam Mayanja attended a very large gathering and this was in presence of opposition firebrands who have always incited public anger against the regime. Those present included Semujju Nganda, LoP Joel Ssenyonyi, Bethesda Ethel Naluyima and nearby Nakawa East’s Ronald Balimwezo etc.
Contrary to what Kasokoso had become famous for, Mayanja said many nice things about his boss President YK Museveni and still had the audience cheerfully listen to him. He was here to proclaim the government position requiring the leadership of Uganda Police Force to permanently shelve plans to evict hundreds of families from what had all along been claimed to be Police land.
Mayanja made it clear that nobody was going to be tolerated evicting people who have lived here for decades as doing so would amount to altering and contradicting the President’s well-articulated position in favor of Bibanja owners who constitute not less than 70% of Uganda’s population.
The eloquent speech he delivered on Thursday evening while assuring the gathering that even the President was ready to go to war with whoever stands in the way for the ordinary Bibanja owners in Kasokoso, got the residents so excited to the extent that several goats and other things were put together and carried to Mayanja’s car as personal gifts to him for being an incorruptible and pro-people Minister.
The residents formed a long procession as they sang praises for Mayanja and President Museveni who they thanked for giving them such a public-spirited leader to serve in the lands docket at the time when land grabbing was becoming a key cause of insecurity and uncertainty in especially Uganda’s poor neighborhoods. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com.
