Maverick Minister in charge of Lands in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development Dr Sam Mayanja has narrated how Milly Babirye Babalanda the Minister of Presidency and the State House Anti-Corruption Unit sealed president Museveni’s Buganda region victory in the just concluded presidential elections.
Mayanja revealed that before Museveni announced his appointment as a minister, he summoned him at Entebbe State House and told him that he wished to appoint him a minister in charge of lands after establishing that he is well vest with land issues and he can use his knowledge to solve the many land problems in the country.
After accepting the appointment, Museveni directed Mayanja to first deal with the issue of bibanja evictions in Buganda and that is the reason why National Resistance Movement (NRM) performed badly in the region in 2021 yet prior to that he had been commanding huge support.
“Before taking oath as a minister, I took my time and moved around the country studying land problems. I concluded to concentrate on Buganda even though one of Buganda Kingdom ministers blasted me for concentrating on Buganda when I was appointed as a minister of Uganda. The other problem I discovered was Resident District Commissioners’ who being the chairpersons of the district security committees were playing a big role in fueling land evictions in Buganda,” minister Mayanja said.
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To solve the issue of the RDCs, Mayanja said that he approached Babalanda, who is their line minister who assured him of her support and she organized a workshop so that the minister sensitizes RDCs on their role in the fight against land eviction.
The President was following whatever was going on issued a directive that RDCs will be answerable on any illegal eviction that takes place in their jurisdiction and to stop these illegal evictions, they had to consult the minister of lands who had the final say on any eviction order issued by courts of law.
“My good sister Babalanda has been supportive, whenever I get a problem with any RDC, I just make a phone call and she immediately responds by taking administrative action. And slowly people started appreciating and understanding that Museveni is still with them, the only problem were the bad leaders on the ground,” Mayanja said.
He added that on issues which needed a lot of investigations, he referred the matter to Brig Gen Isoke because the president directed him to always work with him and he responded positively by doing his investigations and issuing reports which guided his decision on serious land matters at hand.
He further appreciated Babalanda’s idea of creating the office of the Dean of RDCs which also helped him in solving land related issues countrywide and mobilizing local support for the president.
He narrated how Justice Mbabazi the Dean of RDCs and also the Wakiso district RDC has helped him in solving land problems in the district.
“My first locus visit was in Wakiso district, I was briefed before going there that I should not mention Museveni’s name on because people are tired of him. They warned me that if I do it, I will be insulted but after talking to Mbabazi, we agreed that Museveni is the president of the country and our boss, therefore we should use our offices to mobilize support for him and the fruits of our endeavors were witnessed by the good performance in the just concluded elections,” Mayanja said
He advised the newly elected NRM leaders to work for the people not to shame the President, him and minister Babalanda who did the best that they could to make sure that they prepare ground for their win.
