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Land question triggers new fears in Acholi Sub-region
Police officers inspect a disputed land in Purongo Sub-county, Nwoya District on June 19, 2021. There are several land wrangles in Acholi Sub-region. PHOTO/FILE.
What you need to know:
- A report by the Lands ministry details how individuals have processed land titles under both leasehold and freehold arrangements amounting to more than 158,100 hectares
Questions have begun to arise over circumstances under which more than 45,000 hectares of land owned by the government across the Acholi Sub-region have been titled under private ownership.
A report by the Lands ministry details how individuals have processed land titles under both leasehold and freehold arrangements amounting to more than 158,100 hectares. While 213 land titles have been processed on government land across the sub-region between 1968 and 2023, covering up to 158,175.98 hectares, 113 titles translating to 45,244.53 hectares are under freehold ownership. A further 100 titles totalling 112,913.45 hectares are under leasehold ownership.
“The law is very clear, an individual cannot own any piece of land on public land under freehold arrangement, that is self-explanatory,” Prof Jack Nyeko Penmogi, the acting chairman of the Uganda Land Commission (ULC), said. He added: “Once we secure those details, we shall have no alternative than to cancel such titles.
An individual can only own land on public land under a leasehold arrangement subject to renewals up on expiry.”
Sunday Monitor has established that 106 of the 213 titles of government land are in Gulu District. Agago District has the least number of titles—five (55.55 hectares). Amuru District registered 16 titles (191.4 hectares) under freehold, with another three under leasehold (1,862.3 hectares), totalling 2,053.7 hectares.
Gulu had 39 freehold titles amounting to 2,122.52 hectares. Sixty-seven titles were found to be under leasehold (108,657.62 hectares), totalling 110,780.14 hectares. Kitgum had 17 freehold titles (206.8 hectares) and 13 leasehold titles (102.73 hectares), totalling 309.53 hectares. Its neighbour Lamwo recorded 16 freehold titles (16,052.17 hectares), with one leasehold title (80.52 hectares), totalling 16,132.42 hectares.
Elsewhere, Nwoya—known to have the biggest number of commercial farmers in the sub-region (and country)—had six freehold titles (1,054.32 hectares) and another 16 leasehold titles (2,210.55 hectares), totalling 3,264.87 hectares. While Omoro and Pader recorded no single leasehold title, the former had six freehold titles (22.66 hectares) and the latter eight freehold titles (25,539.12 hectares).
Sizing up
Acholi Sub-region, whose eight districts occupy a land mass of 2.8 million hectares, has up to 5,494 titles of land that have been processed by the Lands ministry. Of these, 2075 (174,313 hectares) are under freehold, while 3,419 (593,875.2 hectares) are under leasehold. The report’s findings show that up to 62 percent of the titles are under leasehold.
Separate figures sourced from the Lands ministry indicate that Gulu alone has the highest number of titles at 3,998. Of these, 1,555 are under freehold, while 2,443 are leasehold titles. The titles translated to 240,019.88 hectares (28,167.89 hectares of which are freehold).
A dataset we also accessed shows that Kitgum has 223 freehold (6,608.96 hectares) and 526 leasehold (11,705.98 hectares) titles; Nwoya has 55 freehold 44,286 hectares) and 274 leasehold (293,848.4 hectares) titles; Amuru with 145 freehold (23,067.74 hectares), and 82 leasehold (21,901.98 hectares) titles respectively; Omoro has six freehold (22.66 hectares) and 80 leasehold (49,718.61 hectares) titles; Pader with 46 freehold (52,742.71 hectares) and eight leasehold (4,386.54 hectares) titles; Lamwo had 30 and one freehold and leasehold titles respectively; and Agago District has 15 freehold (356.87 hectares) and five leasehold (381.46 hectares) titles.
Sensitisation drives
Mr Otinga Otto Atuka, the Acholi chiefdom deputy paramount chief, said the chiefdom has continually received complaints from its subjects reporting threats from the National Forestry Authority (NFA) and the National Environment Management Authority (Nema).
“There are people who have been settling in a forest reserve in Pabbo Sub-county during the post-war period and now they have claimed full ownership and want land titled yet such areas were gazetted and mapped by the colonial government,” Mr Otinga said.
This comes as the Lands ministry warns that it will invalidate all applications for certificate of customary ownership from encroachers on government (protected) land across the sub-region.
Mr Hassan Abdallah Byantalo, a senior lands officer at the ministry, said encroachment on government-owned land is criminal and asked land registrars conducting the current mass customary land registration in the sub-region not to accept such requests.
“Ensure nobody encroaches on these protected areas because the government keeps these areas in trust of the people of Uganda,” he told some land registrars and cultural leaders at a meeting. He added: “Be bold and don’t include those streams and forest reserves, as a ministry, when someone comes to do a subsequent transaction, we shall ask you to cut off those areas, buffer zones.”
Since January 2024, the ministry has rolled out a mass registration of customary land as a move to tackle the rampant wrangles over land and foreign land grabbers. During a recent sensitisation meeting with leaders of the sub-region in Gulu City, Prof Penmogi said ULC will enable the government to generate a proper registry for land belonging to the government in Acholi and also enable them to speed up industrial development in the region while mitigating wrangles.
Massive encroachment
Sunday Monitor has established that former public (de-gazetted) land has in the recent past been massively encroached on by individuals. For instance, a September 2023 report by the implementation committee of President Museveni’s Executive Order 03 of 2023 recommended that at least 217 illegal Balaalo herdsmen who settled in the Acholi Sub-region should be evicted. The illegal Balaalo settlers reportedly settled on land customarily or publicly owned without following the protocol.
In Amuru, there are a record number of 86 illegal (non-compliant) Balaalo herdsmen (the highest number in the sub-region). Pader placed second with 45 Balaalo herdsmen.
The report authored by the Balaalo verification committee chaired by Prof Pen-Mogi asked the government to evict the illegal herdsmen in the two regions of north and north-eastern Uganda. It also asked the government to revise all the land lease agreements for land acquisition to ensure locals whose land was hired or bought cheaply is revalued.
Where agreements were found to be unfair to the landowners, the report recommended that the terms and price be renegotiated. It also highlighted a need to transfer the current compromised security leadership accused of frustrating the implementation of presidential directives.
While it recommended that all Balaalo who illegally acquired land titles should be evicted, it also tasked the government to set minimum land rates, particularly in the Acholi Sub-region, to protect the locals from manipulation.
The product of a study conducted between June and August 2023, the report revealed that the Balaalo not only go against the grain but also pose a security risk.
“Some community leaders, including LCs, collude with CID police to stifle cases against the Balaalo, further exacerbating the problem,” the report disclosed, adding, “Balaalo bribe these leaders. Some Balaalo are reported to have guns and military uniforms.”
The study covered five selected sub-regions hosting the Balaalo, including West Nile (Packwach, Madi Okollo, Terego, Adjumani, Moyo, Obongi, and Yumbe); Acholi (Nwoya, Amuru, Gulu, Lamwo, and Pader); Lango (Otuke, Apac, Kwania and Amolatar); Teso (Soroti, Katakwi, and Kapelabyong); Karamoja (Amudat, Abim, Nakapiripirit, Napak); and Sebei (Kween).
During the study, the committee verified 220 Balaalo herdsmen, excluding children and dependents. It discovered that the majority of the Balaalo (15.5 percent) are settled in Amuru District, Gulu (13.6 percent) and Kween (10 percent).
The committee’s findings contrast rather starkly with Gen Salim Saleh’s body of work on landownership by the Balaalo in the sub-region. For one, the former’s findings state that the majority of the settled herdsmen acquired land through purchases but not renting.
Mr Denis Obbo, the Lands ministry’s spokesman, in an interview, acknowledged the report. He also revealed that an inquiry will be conducted over the matter to establish and take appropriate action against individuals holding freehold titles on government land.
“Such land can be owned by an individual but only under leasehold agreement, not freehold,” he said.
Legal challenge
Acholi Sub-region is pretty much a tinderbox where land wrangles can explode at any moment. In 2019, Rtd Justice Galdino Okello and others, in a petition, challenged the constitutionality of land boards, which, allegedly, had land titles processed both on public and customary lands across the sub-region.
The land boards were allegedly administering de-gazetted land and former “public land”, including customary land. This was despite the proprietary rights that are guaranteed in the Constitution of Uganda under Articles 26 (1) & (2) and 237 (1), among others.
The petitioners based their case on the contravention of specific sections in the 1998 Land Act that are inconsistent with Article 237 (1). The provision gives dominion to citizens of Uganda over all land by the land tenure systems provided for in the Constitution.
In its ruling, the court declared that de-gazetted land formerly under any customary owners, clan or community in the Acholi Sub-region reverted to the original customary owners under customary tenure where such ownership is proved, the ruling stated.
The Constitution empowers District Land Boards to allocate land not owned by any person or authority. However, the judges ruled that the same board cannot grant leases out of the land which is not vested in them and the leases may be granted by the customary owners.
“The practice of administering and leasing de-gazetted land and former “public land” by the District Land Boards, except for land that arises in terms of reversion from leases formerly granted to non-citizens or land which is proved by evidence to be land not owned by anybody or authority, betrays Article 237(1),” court ruled.
It also held that the boards are supposed to manage such land for and on behalf of the customary landowners and can only issue Certificates of Customary Ownership (CCOs) or freeholds as per the law.
“The District Land Boards can no longer issue leases over (de-gazetted) customary land on the basis that the same is treated as former public land. The land in these areas, as properly interpreted by the Constitutional Court, reverted to the owners by Article 237 (1) of the Constitution. This ownership must be traced to the period before colonisation,” it said.
