Security personnel in Nwoya District are hunting for a Uganda People’s Defence Force-UPDF soldier and a land broker over allegations of violently evicting dozens of locals from a contested land in Lungulu Sub-county.
It is reported that the suspects masterminded the violent eviction of a family of 25 people in Nyamokino Parish, Got Okwara village between Friday and Sunday purporting to be the true occupants of the land.
Security personnel identified the suspects as Kenneth Bongomin, a renowned land broker, and Charles Ojara, a soldier guarding a farm belonging to the late Gen. Paul Lokech, the former Deputy Inspector of Police.
Nwoya Resident District Commissioner Christopher Omara said on Monday that the eviction led by Bongomin under the watch of the soldier was illegally conducted. He says no leader in the district was notified of the eviction on the land which is also still under contention.
Information obtained indicates that the land measuring approximately 500 hectares was titled in the name of Maxwell Ongom who passed on years ago.
Omara notes that their investigation however reveals part of Ongom’s land could have been illegally sold to a livestock commercial farmer in a deal orchestrated by Bongomin.
According to Omara, they have since ordered for the arrest of both Bongomin and the UPDF soldier to aid the investigation into the circumstances that led to the eviction of the locals.
Omara says the suspects during the raid hired six private security guards from Pyramid Security Group who helped them to evict the locals, torch down their huts and destroy several properties.
On Monday, a section of locals alleged that the eviction conducted was to pave way for two senior army officers in the UPDF who had acquired the land in question to set up commercial farms.
But the Fourth Infantry Division Spokesperson Cap. Hassan Kato rubbished the allegations in an interview with Uganda Radio Network citing they were false. He says no army officer as alleged by locals and whistleblowers acquired the said land.
URN.
