Kabaka Muwenda Mutebi II, the custodian of Mailo Land and Nabagereka Nagginda Luswata
HABARI DAILY I Kampala, Uganda I In Uganda and world over, land is one of the most contentious issues and land ownership a thorny matter that affect the rich and poor in equal measure. Few questions demonstrate this better than the enduring controversy over Mailo land, a system that successive governments have attempted to reform or abolish, only to encounter fierce resistance from landowners, tenants, cultural institutions and constitutional lawyers.
The latest attempt to reopen the debate has come from Urban Development State Minister Margaret Muhanga, who has called for the abolition of Mailo tenure, arguing that it is a colonial legacy that created historical injustices and continues to complicate development more than a century later.
Her remarks have once again placed the politically sensitive question at the centre of Uganda’s land debate.
Muhanga reopens the old debate
Speaking on August 4 during a meeting between the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development and Parliament’s Lands Committee on implementation of the 2026/27 budget, Muhanga argued that Mailo land is at the heart of Uganda’s land problems.
“The biggest problem we face is the land tenure system. Mailo land should be abolished because these were injustices created at that time [1900 Buganda Agreement], and they only exist in kingdom areas,” she said.
Muhanga argued that Mailo creates a situation where two people can claim legitimate interests in the same piece of land.
“A few individuals, the ones who own this land, that we can do away with, title the land and make sure people have a clear land ownership because people own land here in perpetuity,” she said.
Her argument is that the registered Mailo owner possesses the title while the person occupying and using the land as a kibanja holder also enjoys legally recognised interests.
For Muhanga, this “dual ownership” becomes particularly problematic when government needs land for roads, urban infrastructure, industrial parks and other public projects.
“Somebody is a kibanja holder, he has [an] equitable interest in titled land; someone else is having a title, these kinds of contradictions are purely political laws that somebody else will come and remove one day,” she said.
She went further, arguing that land should ultimately belong to the state, pointing to Tanzania as an example where, she said, government finds it easier to implement infrastructure projects because land is government-owned.
The colonial roots of Mailo
At the centre of the controversy is the 1900 Buganda Agreement between the British colonial administration and the Buganda establishment.
The agreement allocated large areas of land to the Kabaka, royal family members, chiefs and other prominent figures. The system was subsequently reinforced by legislation, including the Land Law of 1908.
Supporters of reform argue that this created a land-owning elite while millions of ordinary people became tenants on land they occupied and cultivated.
Former Lands State Minister Dr Sam Mayanja, now Attorney General, made a similar argument in 2022 when he announced plans for reforms intended to move Uganda towards one registrable freehold tenure system.
Mayanja argued that Mailo, both official and private, was a creation of colonial law and that its purpose was not primarily to benefit Ugandans.
According to him, it was part of the British system of indirect rule, creating a class of local collaborators who received special treatment in exchange for helping administer the colony.
But the passage of more than a century has complicated the argument that Mailo can simply be erased.
Land titles have changed hands repeatedly. Families have invested in property. Tenants have developed kibanja land over generations. Banks have used titled land as collateral. And the Constitution now protects existing property rights.
What the Constitution says
Article 237 of the 1995 Constitution vests land in the citizens of Uganda and recognises four main land tenure systems—customary, freehold, Mailo and leasehold.
It also recognises the rights of lawful and bona fide occupants.
This constitutional framework makes abolition far more complicated than simply changing the name of the tenure system.
City lawyer and Kira Municipality MP George Musisi argues that the problem is not necessarily Mailo tenure itself.
“I don’t think it is a matter of the tenure,” Musisi said.
He argued that government already has mechanisms for acquiring land needed for projects of national interest, including compulsory acquisition provisions.
His position is that better planning and timely execution could address many of the problems blamed on the tenure system.
Otuke County MP Paul Omara takes a broader view.
“We need land reforms to be undertaken in a manner that does not take away the wealth from the landowners. But whether to go the Tanzanian way or not is something that needs to be studied,” he said.
Why previous reforms failed
Muhanga’s proposal is not the first attempt by the government to fundamentally change Mailo tenure.
President Yoweri Museveni has repeatedly expressed concern about evictions of bibanja holders, particularly in Buganda.
During the 2021 Heroes’ Day celebrations at Kololo Independence Grounds, Museveni proposed that absentee landlords and Mailo owners who evict bona fide occupants could be compensated so that occupants remain permanently on the land.
“I want Ugandans to support the issue of letting bibanja owners stay on their land permanently,” Museveni said.
He later described the Mailo system as “very unfair”, arguing that ordinary people in Buganda face multiple competing claims over land.
“We shall see how to handle this issue and that of absentee landlords. We are, therefore, committed to solving the issue of land evictions once and for all,” he said.
The Justice Catherine Bamugemereire Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters also recommended that Uganda’s multiple land tenure systems be fused into a single system to improve clarity and cohesion.
Yet the proposals have struggled to move from recommendations to a politically acceptable solution.
Mengo rejects abolition
For Buganda, the issue is not simply whether Mailo should survive under its present name.
Daudi Mpanga, Buganda’s minister for lands and buildings, has argued that it would be extremely difficult to persuade Mailo owners to surrender land for public projects without adequate compensation.
The kingdom’s position, however, is that reform should protect both registered landowners and legitimate occupants.
Medard Lubega Sseggona, who served on a committee established by the Buganda Lukiiko to examine the Mailo question, argues that the problem is not the word “Mailo”.
“For somebody to go and evict a tenant must it be Mailo? Those people are acting in bad faith under the impression that they are fighting Buganda and it is for that sole reason that they want to abolish Mailo,” Sseggona said.
He rejects the idea of using public money to compensate Mailo owners simply so that bibanja holders can remain.
“I work so hard, why would you use my money to pay for somebody’s title? I have a title in my area but it’s not the Government that donated it to me,” he said.
His proposed solution is already contained within existing law: lawful occupants without titles can be protected through certificates of occupancy while paying busuulu, or annual ground rent.
Former Buganda Information Minister Noah Kiyimba similarly says the kingdom is not merely defending the word Mailo.
“The name of the land tenure can be changed to anything—for the sake of argument someone even said the name of the land tenure system can be changed from ‘Mailo’ to ‘Jimmy’ and nothing would change,” he said.
What matters, he added, is genuine reform based on research and consultation.
“Nobody should be compulsorily deprived of their property without proper compensation,” Kiyimba said.
The development argument
Landowners themselves acknowledge that the present system has generated serious problems.
James Galabuzi Mukasa, chairperson of the Uganda Land Owners Association, says overlapping interests have contributed to conflict, evictions and low agricultural productivity.
“The relationship between the owner and tenants on land has continued to be frosty and characterised with violence and evictions and this hampers development,” he said.
He argues that both parties can become economically trapped because neither can fully exploit the land while their interests remain in conflict.
“The landowner and tenant cannot economically benefit from the same piece of land and neither can they access any financial credit because they are in conflict,” Mukasa said.
His solution is partnership rather than abolition.
Uganda, he notes, has favourable agricultural conditions, including the potential for two harvesting seasons annually. Yet land conflicts prevent the country from fully exploiting that advantage.
Can there be a middle ground?
Constitutional lawyer Peter Walubiri believes the Mailo problem can be solved without abolishing the tenure.
“There is a conflict of ownership of land between occupants and registered proprietors and that cannot be solved by changing nomenclature of name and can’t even be solved by the Government paying off one group of people because resources are not there,” he said.
Instead, he proposes negotiated settlements between landlords and bibanja holders, supported by government and backed by properly designed legislation.
Dan Wandera Ogalo also cautions against treating Mailo as fundamentally incompatible with Uganda’s constitutional order.
“Mailo is simply a variation of freehold. The framers of the Constitution provided for both. Should we, therefore, abolish them?” he asks.
That question goes to the heart of the controversy.
A politically explosive question
Prof Venansius Baryamureeba believes the Government must tread carefully because the Mailo debate is inseparable from the wider Buganda question.
“The Buganda question, including Mailo land, is a very contentious matter that should not be handled casually,” he said, warning that it has the potential to cause instability in Buganda.
He instead questioned why government does not concentrate its interventions on land required for major infrastructure corridors and industrial parks.
The central dilemma is therefore clear.
Government wants land that can be acquired and developed efficiently for roads, factories and urban expansion. Landowners want their constitutionally protected property rights respected. Bibanja holders want security against eviction and recognition of the land on which their families have lived for generations. Buganda wants reforms that do not become an assault on the kingdom’s historical land arrangements.
More than 120 years after the 1900 Agreement, the Mailo question remains unresolved because each side has a legitimate interest to protect.
Abolishing the system may appear attractive to those who see it as a colonial injustice. But doing so without addressing compensation, existing titles, occupants’ rights and constitutional protections could create a new injustice while attempting to correct an old one.
That is why every attempt to expunge Mailo from Uganda’s legal books has so far encountered the same immovable obstacle: land is not merely a legal category. It is wealth, identity, inheritance, livelihood and political power—and in Uganda, particularly in Buganda, those interests are deeply intertwined.
