By KT Reporter
Every 31st December, Pastor Joseph Sserwadda, a leading Born Again faith leader, holds a huge prayer gathering to enable close to 150,000 Born Again christians come together in prayers dedicated to thanking God for the ending year, while ushering in the new one.
For more than 20 years, the annual event would be held at Mandela national stadium at Namboole. However, last year this wasn’t possible as the government made it clear that having such a large gathering was unacceptable as it would breach the quality of turf at the newly reconstructed Namboole ahead of the key AFCON tiurnament. Government had just injected hundreds of billions to have the UPDF engineering brigade rebuild the country’s leading stadium.
Sserwadda grumbled, with many of his followers claiming that he was being persecuted for the pro-Bobi Wine rhetoric he had previously engaged in. The government rejected all this as mere propaganda and stood its ground. Sserwadda consoled himself by having the event at his own smaller Ndeeba church land grounds near Kabaka’s palace at Mengo.
Bragging how he serves a mighty God, a tearful Sserwadda vowed to get his own land and bounce back bigger and better in the coming years. Apparently, he has kept his word by securing a 10 acre piece of land in Lubowa, which too is in Wakiso district, just like Namboole. Whereas Namboole is in Kira municipality, Lubowa is in Makindye Ssabagabo municipality, one of the rapidly urbanising Kampala neighborhoods.
However, the acquistion of the land in Naziba Lubowa village has been greeted with fierce resistance from some of Kampala’s wealthiest and most powerful elites who have palatial residential homes on Lubowa hill where they have been living for decades.
They have become aggrieved and petitioned the Ssabagabo municipal authorities protesting the staging of such a large prayer gathering of over 150,000 worshippers in their area, which is a residential place meant for peaceful habitation by peaceful residents, and not for noisy prayers which Sserwadda’s passover congregation is synonymous with.
They have rejected Sserwadda’s blackmail that objecting to his passover inconvinience amounts to ungodilness. They have cited all the relevant laws which clearly prohibit the holding of such disruptive prayer sessions in a residential area where redidents have always lived in total peace and quietness.
Unknown to Sserwadda, some of the facilities in the hilly Lubowa neighbourhood are for security services, in which the mighty SFC has big interest. Sserwadda says that whatever it is, God has annointed him to take over Lubowa hill and turn it into a place for prayers. He claims that God has decided to gradually give him Lubowa hill the way he commanded Ibrahim to take over and inherit the promised land of Canaan.
A few days ago, Sserwadda, who is leasing the land the 10 acres from Indian owners initially for less than 10 years, led a large group of prayer warriors from his Ndeeba-based Victory Christian Center church to go and symbolically claim the land. His wife Freda Sserwadda Namakula was among the group and demanded that the crowd explodes singing “FINALLY.”
Sserwadda, in his brief address, said he was ready to do all he can and part with whatever he can to make sure that after the first less than 10 years the Indians have leased the land to him, the 10 acres permanently becomes his. He asked the crowd to face people’s nice houses on the adjacent plots and claim the same to be theirs in the coming years. He said God has a plan to transform Lubowa into a hill for prayers, on which He will be worshipped for generations to come.
He claimed he had learnt from the area LC1 officials that many of these are bad people who God doesn’t want to continue owning property and living in the Lubowa area, surrounding his 10 acres which he has already christened Doxa Grounds. That some of the wealthy elite living there are ritually unclean and have no business continuing to live in Lubowa.
He implied that the mighty God he serves will soon be driving them out for the Doxa project to expand and concur the entire hill. The church administration produced and released online videos of Sserwadda and his wife making so much proclamation claiming the land, in total obedience to what the veteran Born Again preacher claims God commanded him to do after the Namboole fiasco.
The militancy with which the powerful Sserwadda made his proclaimation, while predicting displacement of powerful families that have live on Lubowa hill for decades, has since caused many to have sleepless nights. This has been the case up to this day, with many fearing that president Museveni’s government bureaucrats may fear and be reluctant to antagonize a powerful pastor like Sserwadda on the eve of the January 15th elections.
Many have vowed to escalate their petition to all powerful power centers including Mariam Wangadya’s human rights commission, the IGG, Parliament and subsequently courts of law in case the Sabagabo municipal authorities continue dragging their feet instead of immediately cracking the whip on Sserwadda who intends to put his Doxa stadium and Doxa TV studios on the same land. He has vowed to gradually buy out neighbors until the entire Lubowa hill becomes his.
The powerful Lubowa residents pushing back against the passover intrusion have been joined by renowned Kampala noise maker pastor Martin Ssempa who has proposed that Sserwadda allows area residents to continue living in their peace and instead considers going to far away places like Kasanje and situate his Doxa project there. Ssempa says that actuslly 10 acres is too small for a big man like Sserwadda, who he says can get much bigger land in Kasanje.
Ssempa says that should Sserwadda’s project, which he celebrates as a big win for the body of Christ, succeed and be allowed to have 150,000 worshippers descend on Lubowa’s little village of Naziba, area residents won’t be able to arrive, access or exit their homes for several days.
He gives the example of the two days the EC spent nominating presidential candidates in September at the same Lubowa hill, as an example of the human and vehicle traffic inconvinience such an event can cause to law-abiding citizens of Uganda in Lubowa. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
