TAMALE MIRUNDI aleese bwiino ku mugagga DODOVIKO eyamenye ekkanisa mu Ndeeba

TAMALE MIRUNDI aleese bwiino ku mugagga DODOVIKO Mwanje eyamenye ekkanisa ya St Peter’s Church mu Ndeeba Church demolition: How did it get to this? The sight of the demolished St Peter’s Church, Ndeeba whose steeple and cross defied the machines and refused to go down is the kind of imagery that gets etched on one’s mind. To the grieving Christians, it is a comforting confirmation that the kingdom of Christ is stronger than the kingdom of darkness. You can see this unspoken peace in the eyes of everyone. Nonetheless, the mood at the destroyed church was not any different from a vigil. Old women were seated in small groups under tree sheds, talking in low tones. Some people were wiping tears from their eyes while others held their bowed heads in their palms. Middle aged men were moving about briskly, making sure that the government officials were welcomed according to protocol. Young men and women were standing by to point journalists to the right people. Every other minute, a passerby would stop by, stand and look at the debris of the church in wonderment. Many were on the verge of tears, mouthing curses at the dark forces that brought the church down. Most were simply rendered speechless by the shock of it all. So what really happened? Why was a church demolished, and why at night? A scan through the reporting on the matter suggests that there is no foul play. Everything is backed up by permissions from relevant authorities. To start with, on June 6, 2019, a ruling by High Court judge Eudes Keitirima, declared that Church of Uganda trustees fraudulently acquired the land where the church sits. On July 10, Justice Keitirima issued an order for vacation of the land. On July 30, a permit issued by the KCCA acting director of physical planning, Mr Ivan Katongole, approved the demolition of the church. In the same permit, he wrote: “The demotion shall be carried out during weekends and off peak hours, [so that it doesn’t cause] interruption of traffic and other businesses within the vicinity.” The legal side is as clean as whistle. And yet questions linger in the mind. If it’s true that the church has been a squatter on someone’s land, did the family try to talk to the church amicably for compensation? A church is no regular squatter; especially when it has been on the said land for more than 40 years. According to the public relations officer of the diocese, the Rev Flobia Sebunya, no such meeting has ever happened. This is confirmed by Godfrey Sentamu, one of the church elders who insists he went for every court session. The other question is, why did the court case only start 26 years later, five years after the death of Evelyn Nachwa, the original owner of the contested land, after the death of all the church trustees? The demolished structure has been on the land since 1981. The court case started in 2007. While the church insists that it bought the land from the original owner, the court ruled that there was nothing on the title that showed the land belonged to the church. The three trustees, were, according to the court judgment, registered individually as proprietors and not trustees. A source at the Namirembe Diocese Estates Office admits that there were serious loopholes in the way some of the church titles were registered. “The title for St Peter’s Church Ndeeba is one of 70 land titles that we recently sent to the land’s office for rectifying. It is based on the old system where the trustees were registered on the title as proprietors. It was based on the trust we had in the people we chose as trustees, that they would not turn around and steal the land.” The trustees were chosen thus; the sitting bishop at the time of the purchase, another bishop, and the clergyman at the church. The history The Rev Sebunya who by coincidence happens to have attended, in her youth, the now demolished church, gives a revealing account of events. She says: “The land at Ndeeba belongs to the church. In 1979, an elderly lady by the name Phoebe Kagumya, who lived just next to the present church grounds offered the community a plot on which to build a church. That church actually started in her house before a makeshift structure was built in her compound.” “Shortly after that, the congregation sought to expand. There was a vacant plot next to the church plot so they looked for the owner. A few leaders went to the lands office and discovered that it belonged to Evelyn Nachwa, a member of the Buganda royal family. The land housed and still houses the Kabaka’s well. The young church approached her and she was gracious enough to sell us the land. That was in 1981. A sales agreement was signed and a title for the land was arranged,” she says. For more TAMALE MIRUNDI - /playlist/PLzr8IBAOpzQM-PiWZAy13adh0S0__tEVn

الفئة