By John V Sserwaniko
Despite actively belonging to leading opposition FDC party, Chapa Karuhanga is a very rich man the very reason why what you are about to read hereunder shouldn’t surprise you. Chapa Karuhanga, who mostly earns his money doing consultancies for international organizations, confirms to Mulengera news website that he sometime back wrote to the President seeking his protection against land grabbers who claim to be working for his brother Gen Salim Saleh. The land in question is located in the most prime parts of the upscale residential neighborhood of Munyonyo. Located on Salaama Road Munyonyo, the land measures 3.5 acres and is currently valued at between Shs9bn and Shs12bn. “Its private Mailo; not lease and not Kabaka’s land. It’s permanently mine and that is all,” Chapa emphatically says in a phone interview with this news website. “I’m always not there at the land but to keep it busy and keep away encroachers I allowed some people to cultivate things like sugarcane on it as I finalized my plans to build a residential complex on it. I have the plans for that project with me and for two years now I have been unable to do anything despite being the registered owner with a title that remains unchallenged.” Chapa says gradually, heavily armed men started coming onto his land and harassed the guys he had authorized to carry out small time farming activities on it to keep it busy and keep false claimants at bay. “But one day they called me saying someone called Masembe came brandishing a gun and told them to leave claiming this is his land. He repeatedly said he was acting on behalf of Gen Salim Saleh and that he is a UPDF soldier. He eventually came to see me and continued to arrogantly assert his claim. He said ‘I’m willing to denounce my claim if you pay me some compensation.’ That surprised me someone demanding to be paid to stop laying claim on my own land? I couldn’t believe this,” Chapa says adding that he even sent people to speak to Gen Saleh verifying Masembe’s claim. “Nothing productive came out of it. He wasn’t being clear and I decided to put my request in writing. I wrote to State House calling on the President to protect me against these heavily armed land grabbers claiming to be connected to his brother. Nothing came out of that up to this day. For the last two years I have been contacting Mrs. Gertrude Njuba who heads the Land Directorate in State House and nothing has come out. They have never replied my letter seeking for their intervention,” says Chapa who famously stood for presidency in 2001 before merging his NDF party with Reform Agenda and PAFO to form what became FDC in 2005. He has since that time been a leading funder and supporter of the FDC party and more so Col Kizza Besigye whose defiance activities office/people’s government is housed at Katonga Road in Chapa Karuhanga’s building not very far from Nakasero State Lodge.
GOES TO COURT:
He says: “When I failed to get help I took the matter to the Land Division of the High Court and Masembe shamelessly had guts to file a defense laying claim on my own land. I bought the land in 1998 and I have all the documents but as we talk, Masembe and other army men have grabbed more than a half of the land. The people they have been selling to are busy erecting houses having rendered me the registered owner powerless. I’m frustrated because my business plans have stalled and yet the court is dragging its feet on the matter. This is why I have petitioned the Commission of Inquiry so that I can appear to testify before Justice Bamugemereire and that is my only hope now.” Chapa says he isn’t very much surprised with what has happened so far “because I have always known how the gun has become everything in this country and whoever has access to it gets his way.” He also says he hopes that Bamugemereire will, after listening to his testimony, have the guts to summon Gen Saleh to come and denounce rogue soldiers who are out to grab innocent people’s land hiding behind his name.
POLITICALLY TARGETED?
Chapa also says he is suspicious this could be a ploy by the NRM government to cripple him financially to avenge his continued financial and logistical support towards Besigye’s defiance activities and his so-called people’s government which he isn’t only hosting at Katonga Road but he is also an active participant in its activities. “I really thought I had to be careful because the State might use those people to come with guns, lure me to the site and shoot me in the ensuing melee and then the government narrative becomes he was shot in a land wrangle,” Chapa fearfully told Mulengera news website in the same phone interview. Veteran spy guru Charles Rwomushana, a very outspoken government critic who has been using his TV and radio talk shows to denounce the impunity by Masembe’s group, says Chapa Karuhanga’s predicament is “consistent with Al-Nakba’s plan to financially cripple whoever stands in his way.” Rwomushana always uses the term Al-Nakba to contemptuously refer to the leaders of this country. “The fact this can happen to a former Presidential candidate and a man of Chapa’s vast connections within Uganda and globally is testimony of how deeply this country has sunk,” Rwomushana told this news website. In his court battles, Chapa Karuhanga is represented by Stanley Omony, a prominent youthful city lawyer that has clearly distinguished himself as a man of high integrity when it comes to pursuing his clients’ land-related interests. He sometime last year ably represented a group of Eritrean investors who were battling a land dispute involving Simbamanyo Building owner Peter Kamya who was refusing to surrender the land in Munyonyo after receiving the purchase price from the Eritrean group. Just like Chapa, the Eritreans intended to put up residential apartments on the land in Munyonyo.
