IGP asked to intervene in Serere land row
Logs of trees which were destroyed and set on fire by officers from Serere District on the disputed piece of land in 2017. Photo | Courtesy
What you need to know:
- The Soroti High Court in June last year ruled that the said land belongs to Mr Omiat but the district leadership has allegedly not allowed him evict the squatters on it so as to put to put to full use.
The Inspector General of Police, Mr Martins Okoth-Ochola, has been asked to intervene in a dispute between Serere District Local government and one Moses Omiat over ownership of a Shs150-acre piece of land.
The Soroti High Court in June last year ruled that the said land belongs to Mr Omiat but the district leadership has allegedly not allowed him evict the squatters on it so as to put to put to full use.
“The court declared our client (Mr Omiat) as the lawful customary owner of the suit land and issued a permanent injunction restraining the above mentioned individuals from interfering with our client’s quiet possession of his land and an eviction order inter alia,” reads in part a petition written by Mr Omiat’s lawyers of Kania & Alli Advocates & Solicitors.
Adding: “It’s against the above background that we humbly request that you intervene to ameliorate our client’s plight by prevailing upon your officers at Serere Police Station and East Kyoga regional police headquarters to intervene by arresting and putting in motion criminal proceedings against these errant individuals on our client’s land.”
Mr Omiat avers that despite writing to the IGP last Thursday, a group of goons descended on his land, cut trees thereon and also attempted to move the ancestral graves away.
He claims the goons did this under the watch of the police.
To that effect, Mr Omiat has registered a case of criminal tress pass and threatening violence before Kamod Police Station.
“The police just watched on as these people destroyed property on ground that the top district leadership has told them that they have a presidential directive not to allow the eviction of the so many people on the land,” he said.
Efforts to reach out to Mr Ambrose Etok, the officer-in-charge of Kamod Police Post, were futile as his mobile phone was switched off by press time.
Likewise, efforts to reach out to IGP Ochola were futile as he never picked our repeated phone calls and never returned the same by press time.
BACKGROUND
In June last year, High Court in Soroti ordered Serere District local government to pay Shs320m to Mr Omiat as compensation for encroaching on his land. In March, Soroti High Court dismissed an application by the district that had sought to stay the execution of the earlier decision of the court that held that Mr Omiat is the customary owner of the contested land and can now evict the squatters on the land.
