Ethnicity and the Politics of Land Tenure Reform in Central Uganda

Abstract

There has been much debate in recent years about land tenure reform in Africa. However, this debate has largely failed to acknowledge the role ethnicity can play in the success or failure of reform. The case of Buganda in central Uganda, where land has long been strongly associated with ethnic identity, provides a counterexample which underlines the importance of ethnicity. The paper demonstrates how attempts by the current Ugandan government to implement badly needed land tenure reform have been undermined by its reluctance to acknowledge this ethnic attachment as well as its failure to address perceptions of ethnic bias towards western Ugandans.

Keywords:

• Land tenure reform
• ethnic bias
• ethnic identity
• Uganda

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Tim Allen, Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, Teddy Brett, Diana Hunt, Ben Jones, Pauline Peters, two anonymous referees for CCP and participants at the Biennial Conference of the African Studies Association of the UK held at Goldsmith's College and at a King's College London Africa Research Group seminar for comments and suggestions. All errors are, of course, my own.

Notes

1. I deliberately leave out the racial politics of land tenure reform in southern Africa for obvious reasons.

2. The same applies to ‘custom’, ‘tradition’, ‘tribe’ and other such troublesome terms (e.g. Cotula et al., 2004).

3. In the case of Uganda see, among others, Bosworth (2002) and Hunt (2004).

4. When the land was properly surveyed it was found that there was considerably less than was originally estimated, thereby leaving the Crown with only 8,307 square miles (West, 1972: 59).

5. Thus many Bugandan landlords continue to be prominent in Mengo, including former Buganda Kingdom Minister of Industry and lawyer Peter Mulira and Kabaka Mutebi's father-in-law and former Treasurer of Buganda Kingdom, Nelson Nkalubo Ssebugwawo, among others.

6. Other prominent Bugandan landlords who have been present in Parliament under NRM rule but not in government include Shannon Kakungulu, Gabriel Lukwago (now deceased), Wasswa Lule, Nsubuga Nsambu and Kefa Ssempangi.

7. Banyarwanda, including the current President of Rwanda Paul Kagame, comprised some 20–30 per cent of the army in the 1980s. The Banyankole are split among the cattle-herding Bahima and the farming Bairu, much like the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda. Museveni has thus often been accused of being, like Kagame, a Tutsi. The rumours rest on the fact that one of his grandparents was a Tutsi; however, the rest were Bahima/Banyankole.

8. Muntu held the post until 1998.

9. This overrepresentation of MPs from Mbarara is not a recent development, as Peter Kasenene, Mary Mugenyi and Nasasira represented the district in the cabinet before the May 2006 reshuffle.

10. Tumukunde also owns land in Mityana (Mubende district), a house in Kampala and other assorted property (The Monitor [Kampala], 12 March 2005).

11. The former King of Rwanda Kigeli V. Ndahindurwa also owns land in Buganda, with a total of seven acres in Sembabule district.