The Buikwe resident district commissioner, Haawa Ndege Namugenyi, has been suspended. This follows a heated verbal exchange with the state minister in the Office of the Vice President, Diana Mutasingwa, over a resident’s eviction last month.
On June 13, 2024, Namugenyi in the company of the police allegedly procured protective cover for self-claimed bailiffs who, in broad daylight, demolished part of Simon Herbert Alideki’s residence, despite the court injunction.
The victims are grandchildren to Simon Peter Kasikisa owned several properties in Fort Portal, Mukono, and Buikwe. The petition was reportedly filed in Fort Portal High Court, where the deceased had his biggest estate. The contested property is located in Naava Cell, Njeru Municipality, in Buikwe district.
Alideki and his sister Stella Nambi told the minister that when the Court ‘unfairly’ allocated their property to their half-siblings from another mother, George Namugera, Gerald Kasekende, Peter Ddamulira, and Madalena Nakyajja, they filed a petition, which led to the issuance of the injunction.
Altercation
On the fateful day, when Alideki and Nambi raised the red flag about the eviction, the Minister swung into action and stopped the exercise. On arrival, she flared at the RDC, challenging her to present both the court eviction order and the security committee endorsement minutes on which she was based to allow the exercise.
“I sit in the Cabinet, and the President always emphasises to us not to evict people without following the guidelines. But you, the RDC, who has to enforce the presidential directives, are instead defying them. I have been hearing a lot about you, and whenever I call you, you don’t respond to my calls as a minister. Madam RDC, kindly leave our district because you’re doing a disservice to the people of Buikwe and the NRM government,” Mutasingwa fumed.
Minister of Presidency Briefed
Last week, Mutasingwa, also the Buikwe District Woman MP reportedly briefed the Minister for Presidency, Milly Babalanda, about the several scenarios where the RDC has been involved in land eviction
Based on this background, Babalanda has decided to recall the RDC, pending investigations.
“Following a hot exchange that transpired between the RDC, Buikwe, and the State Minister in the Vice President’s Office, and which caused much public debate where the Office of the President was deeply discredited, I wish to guide on the matter as follows: The RDC Buikwe, Haawa Namugenyi Ndege, should be recalled to the headquarters pending redeployment,” reads Babalanda’s letter to the Secretary, Office of the President, Yunus Kakande.
RDC denies wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, efforts to get a comment from RDC Namugenyi remained futile since her known phone contacts were off by press time.
However, following the altercation last month, the RDC denied any wrongdoing and denied supervising a house demolition exercise, as alleged by Mutasingwa.
“I went to calm down a situation in the Kasikisa family. They are having wrangles that have sucked in many people, including neighbours. In fact, the people the minister found knocking down the house were neighbours who were trying to forcefully reinstate an ailing grandchild of the late Kasikisa into his grandfather’s house. The uncles of the ailing boy had thrown him out of the house, which angered the neighbours,” she said.
History of the conflict
According to documents seen by the Newsroom, the contested house belonged to the late Simon Kasikisa, who died in 1978, and his wife, Sarah Nankya. The couple had three children—two girls and one boy. The boy disappeared in South Africa while the girls died, leaving behind two children: Stella Nambi, 30, and Simon Peter Alideki, 20.
When their mothers also died, Nambi and her brother Alideki remained under the care of their grandmother Nankya, who also passed away in the early 2000s, leaving them under the care of area LCs. Nambi says their grandparents willed that they inherit the house and the land on which it sits.
Nambi says they were peacefully living in their grandparent’s house until some of their uncles that the grandfather had sired out of wedlock approached them with a request to assume their share on the property.
