Kibaki denies owning row-hit residential house in Kampala

Retired President Mwai Kibaki has distanced himself from a row over a prime residential property in Uganda’s capital Kampala and asked the players in the battle to leave his name out of the saga.

Mr Kibaki said he was surprised to hear that he had been mentioned as laying claim to the property.

“The former president is categorical. He has never owned and does not own any property in Kampala. Anyone trying to drag his name into the property row must stop forthwith,” said Prof Nick Wanjohi, Mr Kibaki’s private secretary

The saga began when bailiffs turned up at the doorstep of a senior Ugandan officer, Brig Kasirye Ggwanga, who is also President Museveni’s security adviser, and attempted to evict him from the property. Brig Ggwanga says he has occupied the house for 22 years although records show he got its lease in 2004.

The Brigadier dismissed the people laying claim to the house as grabbers trying to arm-twist him into handing over his property and said they were using the former president’s name to dispossess him.

“I want Mwai Kibaki to come to my gate and claim the property. I have been here for 20 years,” Ggwanga said.

Brig Ggwanga says he was surprised when bailiffs showed up at the property, plot 273, block 732 Kizungu zone in Makindye, a Kampala suburb. He set his dogs upon them, forcing them to flee.

Brig Ggwanga says the police and bailiffs did not even have any eviction order.

The brigadier, who is known for his controversial public jabs, told the Sunday Nation from his home in Makindye, an upscale suburb of Kampala, that it was prudent for the former Kenyan Head of State to prove ownership of the property.

The property’s original owners, the Buganda Kingdom, this week said through its land and property agency, Buganda Land Board, that the asset was leased to Ggwanga for 49 years and there is a possibility that there was a mixing up of the plots.

“I was surprised that policemen would come to a Brigadier General’s residence without any authority, without any letter, (they) just come in and suppose we had a fight, what would have happened because I am also armed? But my dogs kicked them out and actually one of them got injured.”

However, The Observer, a newspaper in Kampala, reported early in the week that Ggwanga was being targeted by state operatives for speaking out against the now controversial succession plan in which President Museveni’s son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is mentioned as the beneficiary.

“You don’t know who you are messing with. I have been a soldier for the last 41 years and, when you look at me, do I look stupid? If they come back here in my compound, there will be bodies. Period,” he said.

Before Brig Ggwanga allegedly got a lease for this property which the Uganda army used as an officers’ mess as it was a stone’s throw-away from the President’s State Lodge in the same area.

Buganda Kingdom properties were re-possessed by the government of Milton Obote in 1967 when his government abolished kingdoms.

President Museveni restored the cultural institution in 1993, and early this month, he returned all properties owned by the cultural institution.

When Lt-Col Michael Mugabi, the officer who was in charge of overseeing the eviction, was contacted on Friday, he said the process was still on and they will do whatever it takes to evict Brig Ggwanga.

But Ggwanga insists: “My children have grown up here, we never had a problem and Mengo (Buganda Kingdom) gave me lease for 49 years. Why can’t they talk to Mengo instead of raiding me. Isn’t there a law in Uganda? Is Mwai Kibaki pulling strings in Uganda from Kenya?”

The soldier says he has appealed to the Ugandan leader, Yoweri Museveni, who has re-assured him that no one would threaten his peace. “President Museveni has told me not to bother since he knows it is my house and the matter has been put to rest.”

Mr Ofwono Opondo, the Uganda government spokesman, said the case was a private matter that is before a court of law.  

One-storeyed house

The property in contention is a one-storeyed residential house at a hill in the Makindye suburb. A woman named Christine Kakai asked the court through her lawyer Alex Legida to compel the soldier to return her property.

But, according to Ggwanga, the saga started when one Owala from Kisumu, who was then working with Uganda’s security outfit National Security Agency under the second Milton Obote regime was using the house.

When the Obote regime collapsed and subsequently Museveni captured power, it was turned into an officers’ mess. Brig Ggwanga started living in the house when he became a commandant of a nearby military barracks. He later acquired a lease from its rightful owners, the Buganda Kingdom, nine years ago.