The Worst Land Grabbers in Uganda: A blood Soaked Map Of Greed, Ghosts And Government Silence

By Emmanuel Mihiingo Kaija

Introduction: When Soil is Betrayed

Beneath the sprawling sky that stretches above Uganda’s ancient hills and fertile lowlands, a hidden war persists—unseen by the eyes of distant capitals, unrecorded in the annals of official histories, yet raging fiercely in the trembling hands of widows clutching tattered deeds and in the vacant stares of children whose homes were razed before dawn’s first light. This war is waged not with the thunder of guns, but with the silent, insidious violence of forged documents, corrupt bureaucrats’ signatures, and the cold calculus of power hungry to sever the sacred bond between people and their soil. To the people of Uganda, land is not simply an economic asset but a living chronicle—a sacred covenant embroidered with the blood, sweat, and spirit of generations. It is where grandmothers’ bones rest beneath the shade of mango trees, where yam mounds swell with the promise of life, where the whisper of ancestors moves with the wind through tall grasses. When land is stolen, this covenant is shattered; memory is erased; identity is sundered, and the very essence of community begins to unravel like worn bark falling from a once-mighty baobab. This exposé seeks not only to unveil the shadows where these betrayals take root but to raise the voices of those silenced—widows who weep beside empty hearths, farmers who watch their fields smolder, elders whose sacred graves lie behind locked gates. Their stories weave through official reports and court filings like a haunting refrain, a relentless heartbeat beneath the measured tones of bureaucracy and politics. Herein lies a testament—a sacred reckoning—that the theft of land is the theft of life itself.

1. Lt. David Kabagambe & Mohammed Waiswa — Kassanda District (~628 acres)

In the soft earth of Kassanda District, where generations long past sowed millet and banana groves beneath skies heavy with ancestral song, a violent rift was inflicted upon the land and its people—a silent plague that crept not with drums but with documents forged in shadows. Between 2022 and 2024, Lt. David Kabagambe, once a guardian of the nation’s peace under the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, allied himself with Mohammed Waiswa, a figure whose name traveled through whispers as a specter of land plunder and unchecked ambition. Together, this pair wielded not rifles but forged land titles, backed by the collusion of District Land Office officials whose hands were stained with duplicity. Their prize: approximately 628 acres in Kitumbi sub-county—ancestral land not recorded in formal registries but safeguarded in the collective memory and kinship of community. This was more than territory; it was sacred soil, where every tree and mound was a vessel of history and belonging. Their seizure was not a quiet transaction but a campaign of terror writ large: cattle stolen beneath cloak of darkness; fields set ablaze beneath the relentless glare of sun; homes bulldozed with brutal impunity, their stones crushed beneath the heavy boots of hired hands. Over 150 families, many led by widows, grandmothers, and orphaned children, were cast into exile—seeking refuge beneath mango trees, inside churches, and in the precarious embrace of forest shadows. Their worldly possessions—tools of survival and symbols of hope—reduced to ash and memory. The Uganda Land Justice Forum answered their cries, dispatching human rights investigators whose reports meticulously documented this orchestration of dispossession, complaints lodged with the Resident District Commissioner and Ministry of Lands echoing into silence. An internal audit by the Uganda Land Commission in June 2025 (Report No. ULC/2025/Kassanda/07) unearthed the tangled web of overlapping titles and procedural breaches implicating officials, yet the wheels of justice stalled, no arrests made, no restitution offered. The names Kabagambe and Waiswa have become etched into the red dust of Kitumbi—not mere rumor but verdicts engraved in scorched earth: testimony that legality can kneel before the weight of a uniform, that land can be stolen beneath the thin veil of legitimacy, leaving behind only the smoldering remains of shattered lives.

“We lost everything overnight. The children ask for their home, but all that remains is the dust and the fire.” — Mariam, displaced mother from Kitumbi

2. Jasper Kakooza & Co‑Conspirators — Gomba District (~1,454 acres)

Amid the verdant ridges of Musongole Parish, where tea bushes curl like emerald waves beneath misty dawns and ancient forests inhale the prayers of countless generations, a betrayal of epic proportions unfolded. In October 2024, Jasper Kakooza, Acting Commissioner for Mapping and Surveys, orchestrated a conspiracy of shadows alongside nine co-conspirators, fabricating duplicate land titles over 1,454 acres—lands that had been legally stewarded since 1955 by the Madhvani Group, whose tenure balanced enterprise with respect for earth and ecology (Freehold Register Vol. 60, Folio 4). This was no clerical error; it was a violent erasure. From November 2024 through March 2025, bulldozers ripped through 600 acres of mature tea plantations—testaments to decades of toil—and felled 540 acres of protected forest, severing roots of biodiversity and extinguishing ancestral herbs revered for their healing. Workers displaced by the destruction spoke of land turned barren, livelihoods stolen beneath the indifferent clang of machinery. In March 2025, the Kampala Anti-Corruption Court formally charged Kakooza and his associates with abuse of office, forgery, and fraudulent land acquisition (Case No. ACC/2025/047). Though arrests were made, no restitution has been forthcoming; the Madhvani Group’s pleas echo across scarred hills, drowned beneath silence. This case exposes the terrifying ease with which maps—those supposed guardians of truth—are twisted into instruments of conquest, reshaping not only land but the destinies of those who depend on it.

“They didn’t just steal land; they stole our livelihood, our history, and our future.” — Estate manager, Madhvani Group

3. Edward Kityo Seruma (“Green Way”) & Yusufu Kazibwe — Mukono District

In Mukono District’s fertile Nakasajja sub-county, where land is lineage etched through generations like a sacred tapestry, a dark tale unfolds. Between 2020 and early 2025, Edward Kityo Seruma, known by the moniker “Green Way,” alongside Yusufu Kazibwe, wove a systematic web of dispossession targeting Kamundu Martin’s multi-generational estate. Their tools were forged subdivision claims, illegal fencing, and hired muscle—machetes brandished in the daylight to terrify, crops destroyed to starve out resistance. Banana groves, cassava patches, and bean fields—more than food sources, these were living archives of family history—were seized and trampled. It was only under mounting civil society pressure and the intervention of the State House Anti-Corruption Unit that, in early 2025, the Nakifuma Court filed charges of forcible entry and criminal conspiracy (Docket No. NKF/2025/015). Yet justice remains a distant dream; Kamundu Martin remains landless, barricaded behind cold steel, a testament to a system where law bends before the heavy hand of power, and authority becomes entitlement, leaving communities stripped bare, not only of soil but of hope.

“It is not just land that is lost but our dignity and trust in the system.” — Community leader, Nakasajja

4. Wakiso Land Grabbers — Bukasa Zone, Kyengera Town Council

In Wakiso District, where urban expansion crushes the remnants of tradition beneath concrete and steel, the heart-wrenching plight of Mukyala Margaret Nansubuga, an 87-year-old widow, stands as a stark beacon of gendered injustice. Her inherited property in Bukasa Zone became a target of a syndicate involving Yusufu Kazibwe himself, who wielded forged letters of administration and fraudulent agreements to stake false claims with the Wakiso Land Office. Resistance was met with brutality: homes razed, gardens uprooted, community members beaten into silence. Police officials, citing “ongoing investigations,” turned a blind eye as squatters sealed off plots with walls and put land up for sale, transforming legal limbo into profit. Despite the Uganda Women’s Land Rights Coalition’s July 2025 report (UWLC/2025/06) documenting these injustices and rallying attention, no restitution or compensation has been forthcoming. Mukyala’s story exposes the precariousness of women’s land rights in Uganda, where legal protections are often rendered hollow by syndicates cloaked in power and impunity.

“If they can take from an old woman with papers, who is truly safe?” — Mukyala Nansubuga

5. Steven Asaasira & RDC Patrick Mugisha — Kakumiro District

In the wetlands of Kakumiro District, where papyrus reeds whisper ancient songs and cattle have grazed unchallenged for generations, an insidious transformation has torn at the fabric of customary life. Businessman Steven Asaasira, empowered by the political patronage of RDC Patrick Mugisha, secured fraudulent titles to communal lands that peasants had held for over forty years under customary tenure. The resulting evictions were swift and ruthless: over 300 households uprooted under police escort, ancestral graves desecrated, farms fenced off and barred. Uganda’s Constitution, through Article 237, explicitly protects customary land rights, yet these safeguards were ignored or circumvented with ease. Complaints to the Uganda Land Commission (ULC Case No. 2024/678) and the Inspectorate of Government have languished unanswered, while the wetlands remain locked behind gates branded as eco-tourism projects—shadows of their former life. The displaced are left to mourn not just lost soil but the erasure of their histories, silenced beneath layers of bureaucratic deceit and cold greed.

“They called us squatters, but these were our fathers’ lands, our homes.” — Clan elder, Kakumiro

6. Hon. Grace Freedom Kashaija & Co-Conspirators — Isingiro District (~800 acres)

In the wide-open pastoral lands of Isingiro District, where the rhythms of cattle herding shape identity and community bonds, a grievous breach has fractured tradition. Hon. Grace Freedom Kashaija, in collusion with local officials, is accused of orchestrating the illegal seizure of approximately 800 acres of communal grazing land, displacing over 500 households whose livelihoods depend on open pasture. The Uganda Land Commission’s 2025 internal investigation (ULC/Isingiro/2025) uncovered forged subdivision certificates and collusion, yet the prosecutorial bodies have yet to act. Elders speak with heavy hearts, warning that without pasture, the cattle perish, and with them, the culture that sustains them faces extinction. This theft is not just a loss of soil but a wound in the heart of a community, a fracture in the fabric of pastoral life that may take generations to heal.

“Grass gone, cattle gone; our way of life is dying.” — Elder from Nyakabirizi

7. The Mukasa Family vs. Kigumba Sugar Works — Kiryandongo District (~1,200 acres)

Between 2022 and 2024, the Mukasa family endured a protracted and painful struggle against Kigumba Sugar Works, whose aggressive expansionist agenda led to coercive evictions and woefully inadequate compensation. Satellite imagery from 2023 reveals the stark transformation of once-diverse farmland into vast monoculture sugarcane plantations—green deserts stripped of biodiversity and food security. Human Rights Watch and other international NGOs have documented multiple violations of Uganda’s Land Act and international human rights standards, highlighting the gross imbalance of power and the human cost of “development.” The Mukasa family’s story is but one thread in a larger tapestry of dispossession, echoing the promise of progress that too often demands the price of home and sustenance.

“We were promised development, but we lost our homes and food.” — Mukasa family member

8. Brigadier Robert Kintu & Syndicate — Mukono and Buikwe Districts (~2,000 acres)

From 2021 through 2025, Brigadier Robert Kintu and a web of co-conspirators orchestrated a sprawling campaign of land theft, amassing over 2,000 acres through forged titles, intimidation, and the protection afforded by military and political patronage. Entire villages were displaced, irrigation systems sabotaged, and ghost companies created to launder the proceeds of these illicit acquisitions. Parliamentary investigations and Uganda Land Commission reports have exposed these nefarious activities, yet Kintu’s powerful connections have ensured his immunity. For the communities uprooted, this theft is deeply personal—a selling off of the sacred earth of ancestors, a fracturing of livelihoods and futures under the crushing weight of corruption and impunity.

“Military might turned to land theft—our sacred mother sold piece by piece.” — Displaced community leader

Conclusion: The Soil Will Speak

From the desolate tea plantations of Gomba to the smoldering ruins of Kassanda, Uganda’s land crisis reveals itself as a wound that cuts deeper than policy or law—a spiritual rupture tearing at the very heart of identity, memory, and community. Land theft is measured not merely in acres but in the silencing of histories, the fracturing of futures, and the erosion of the covenant between people and earth. The Uganda Land Governance Assessment Framework (2024) reports a staggering 62% of rural land remains undocumented, exposing millions to the merciless predation of elites cloaked in legality. Unless justice takes root in restitution, governance bows to stewardship rather than exploitation, and land is reclaimed as covenant instead of commodity, the soil will remember. It waits, breathless and watchful—ready, one day, to testify. Silence is not forgetting; it is the earth’s own mournful witness.

Emmanuel Mihiingo Kaija

Emkaijawrites@gmail.com