Kaguta Dead Serious, Kayongo’s Owino Ownership Terminated, Directed To Forward Title ASP

By Isaac Mutema

President Yoweri Museveni, if the potential loser himself has been taking it lightly, isn’t joking about removing the Owino lease from Godfrey Nkajja Kayongo. Look, the big man has escalated these matters by issuing a seven days ultimatum to Kayongo.

Mark you, the businessman is expected to surrender the Title of Owino within those tight deadlines. The title isn’t being surrendered for the sake of it. Museveni wants the Kayongo to be quickly expunged from it.

We understand that Museveni directed the registrar of Titles, John Bagiira to write to Kayongo’s company known as Market Stalls, Space and Lockups Owners Association (SSLOA) to communicate his directives.

After the president’s directive, Bagiira duly wrote to Kayongo on July 18 this year. Bagiira gives Kayongo just seven days to turn over the Title for cancellation.

Bagiira’s boss, John Karuhanga had refused to kowtow to Museveni’s directives.  The boss feared that doing so would come with legal repercussions for him, since Kayongo’s lease is, presumably, still subsisting.

Further to that, Kayongo had, in the past, secured a court order stopping anybody or any authority from depriving of the tender.

He secured the order alive to how the government can give a lease using one hand and then take away the same, using the opposite hand.

Reverting Bagiira’s letter, it reads: the office of the chief registrar of Titles terminated your ownership of the Title Deed number KCCA on July 15, 2022.

According to the letter, the above termination was effected according to a request from the Kampala District Land Board led by David Balondemu.

Balondemu first wrote to the president to bring to his attention how the Kayongos were breaching the lease with abandon.

As karma would have it, the president himself won the lease for Kayongo. He did so by simply instructing the former chairman of the Kampala land board, Yusuf Nsibambi, to give the lease to Kayongo.

The current MP, after the president had brought a lot of pressure to bear on him,  curved in and did as instructed.

Kayongo is a known supporter and bankroller of the NRM regime. This is why the president used his powers to win the tender for him.

For the record, the president was seeking to block the perceived opposition-leaning businesspersons desirous of securing the market from actually living the dream.

But as we have reported before in these pages, Kayongo would annoy the president years later. But how?

This is after, Kayongo went ahead and sourced for an Arab investor to redevelop the market. Kayongo’s godfathers in the government were alarmed by the man’s show of defiance.

This stance since Kayongo didn’t bother, before linking up with the Arab, to let the godfathers know about what he was up to and why.

For that matter,  the Arab ended up being effectively stopped. This was done by using the State-owned Financial Intelligence Authority(FIA). How?

FIA exploited the country’s anti-money laundering Act to accuse the Arab of supposedly mobilizing funny funds from abroad.

The authority stated that was the kind of money Kayongo’s Arab was counting on to redevelop the country’s populous market.

Just like that, Kayongo and his Arab friend ended up being elbowed from the process of redeveloping Owino.

They are now before we can forget, faced with the grim reality of ending up losing the money-minting tender as a whole.

But as we have reported, Kayongo isn’t expected to let go of the lucrative lease without putting up a fight.

His lawyers have been fuming lately, telling everyone to expect, upon the government cancelling the client’s lease, a legal tsunami from them.

Yet, Museveni isn’t someone to be intimidated by anyone. He is rebellious. Kaguta does what he wants and then waits to deal with the consequences as they come.

Accordingly, Kayongo’s attorneys being adult Ugandans, one would expect them to know better than exploiting the legal processes to thwart Kaguta from doing as he wishes.

Museveni is rumoured to have landed a Turkish. The Turkish guy is now waiting in Kaguta’s wings, itching to emerge and take over from Kayongo.

That said and done, there was no way the son of Kaguta was going to let a certain Nkajja, mess up with him and his newfound investor.

Kayongo can go to court. After all, he can be sorted there, financially. Just as Hassan Basajjabalaba and Capt John Mugyenyi were respectively settled in the case of Owino and Kisseka market.