Thirty-three-year-old Kevin Ajibo, a resident of Olep Village in Ochero Town Council, Kaberamaido District, wakes up every day feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. Despondent, confused, widowed, and landless, her struggles exemplify the challenges faced by many Ugandan women.
Five years ago, following the death and burial of her husband, Ms Ajibo’s in-laws evicted her from her matrimonial home, claiming it belonged to their deceased brother and that customarily they were the legitimate heirs. The entire community backed her in-laws. She, however, refused to give up the fight. With assistance from her local LC1, the matter was reported to police, who referred her to the NGO Redeem International.
The organisation provided legal aid, and this year the Soroti High Court ruled in her favour. Today, Ms Ajibo is attempting to rebuild her home and her life. Her experience mirrors that of many women dispossessed of land due to customary practices, compounded by the long delays courts take to dispose of land cases. The Justice Benjamin Odoki Constitutional Commission report highlighted that land is a vital natural resource and a common heritage unmatched by any other.
‘Ownership of land by the individual, family or community confers real or potential wealth, social prestige and a sense of economic security. Population growth continues to put a great deal of pressure on land, and hence the need to look at the land issue very carefully,’ the report reads in part.
During the Odoki consultations, concerns raised included land grabbing by the rich and powerful, fear of foreigners taking over land, excessive centralisation of land administration, and corruption in land offices, with the process of acquiring land titles riddled with malpractices at every stage.
The Constituent Assembly that debated the Constitution ultimately settled on four land tenure systems: customary, governed by certain groups under local norms; leasehold, which is time-bound under specific conditions; freehold, ownership in perpetuity; and mailo, in which a registered owner holds title forever, but tenants have protected user rights.
Article 237 of the Constitution vests ownership of all land ‘to the citizens of Uganda and shall vest in them in accordance with the land tenure systems provided.’ Thirty years on, nearly all the problems highlighted by the Odoki Commission persist. The land question remains unsettled, particularly in Buganda Sub-region, where mailo tenure dominates, and increasingly in northern and north-eastern Uganda, where customary tenure applies.
Colonial roots
Before 1894, when present-day Uganda became a British protectorate, land rights in different cultural polities were governed through unwritten customary norms passed orally across generations. Consequently, the colonial administration implemented three tenure systems: freehold, leasehold, and mailo in Buganda, where land was allocated in square-mile blocks.
Outside Buganda, the 1903 Order in Council declared all land crown land, while customary land ownership was recognised within certain limitations. The 1962 Independence Constitution established a federal system, under which Buganda’s land was administered by the Buganda Land Board, and mailo lands were accountable to the Administrator General and Parliament.
Following the 1966 crisis, the 1967 Constitution maintained private mailo land but hinted at future reforms. In 1975, President Amin’s Land Reform Decree declared all land public, vested in the state, and administered by the Uganda Land Commission. By the time the 1995 Constitution was drafted, land was a highly polarising issue. Nonetheless, the new supreme law introduced sweeping reforms.
Dr Rose Nakayi, a senior lecturer at Makerere University School of Law, argues that the Constituent Assembly ‘seem to have adopted an approach which accommodates all tenures to allow them to naturally evolve, with the expectation that some may over time fall through the fissures if no longer relevant.’
‘What we see today are legal and other means in pursuit of a different kind of land tenure system, seemingly towards uniformity. Maybe more engagement with this matter would have given a clearer campus,’ she says.
Ms Carol Kayanja, the programme associate at the NGO Uganda Community Based Association for Women And Children Welfare(UCOBAC), which is leading the Stand for Her Land Campaign, argues that while the Constitution’s provisions have been domesticated into other laws such as the Land Act, the country is still struggling with land disputes.
‘However, the framers of the Constitution could have envisaged what lay ahead. At that point, my assumption would have been that they would have addressed the question of who are the people of Uganda, how do they organise, how do they relate with each other, and how can we enhance that relationship in terms of development and how can that inform the relationship especially on mailo,’ she says.
She adds that although the Constitution confers equal rights to men and women in ownership of land and property, ‘the country is witnessing a lot of injustices as courts take a long time to dispose of cases and selective application of the law amid lack of information and empowerment of people on their rights.’
An unending headache
Land offices and courts are rife with corruption. Other challenges include absentee landlords, insecure tenant rights, evictions, and conflicts over land across the country. According to the Ministry of Lands, Central Uganda accounts for more than 80 percent of land disputes due to the mailo tenure system. Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Norbert Mao concurs that ‘the land question is far from settled, which undoubtedly will be part of the proposed Constitution review.’
‘We have learned to our detriment that having land purely in the hands of the people can actually sabotage development. Now, when the government is not strong on development issues, it cannot invoke those clauses about determining land use,’ Mr Mao says.
‘Ideally, even if land belongs to the people, planning-but the government seems too weak to enforce planning codes. So we have chaos in the arena of land. In the last 30 years we have had an alarming rate of landlessness. It has led to a surge in rural-urban migration, congested cities, slums, etc,’ he adds.
Dr Doreen Kobusingye, a facilitator at the National Land Coalition, an umbrella organisation of 40 local and regional NGOs, said the 1995 Constitution addressed most concerns surrounding the land question, but weak institutions such as district land boards and courts exacerbate problems.
‘Most of the problems we have in the country are as a result of failing to resolve the impasse on the mailo tenure system,’ Dr Kobusingye said.
‘The other problem was introduced by the Land Act of 1998, which introduced the conversion of customary land to freehold. For instance, in most parts of Western Uganda land is owned under individual customary tenure, but we don’t hear many problems. But where the bundles of rights of certain groups are not defined, such as in the north and north- east, land is becoming a big question,’ she adds.
Wherever there is a brewing land conflict, women and other vulnerable groups such as the elderly, widows, youth, and persons with disabilities are disproportionately affected.
‘Whereas the 1995 Constitution talks of equality of women and men, most land is owned by men. Women own approximately 16 percent of land. Even with the Succession Act (2023), that regulates inheritance of immovable property of a deceased person, some communities and parents still prefer males to females, on top of other social norms that impede women’s ownership of land and property,’ Dr Kobusingye explains.
Both Ms Kayanja and Dr Kobusingye argue that proposed reforms must address recurring issues, particularly under mailo land tenure, by streamlining landlord-tenant rights and resolving disputes over conversion of customary land to freehold. Meanwhile, public land held by central or local governments is also under threat.