A diplomat in President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s government says that 2021 National Unity Platform (NUP) presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has stolen his land near his Busabala Beach in Wakiso District.
Ambassador Kintu Nyago, who head’s Uganda’s station in South Africa, has not only run to court to have the matter resolved but state security operatives were on Thursday, November 10 at the scene as part of their investigation inti the matter. Nyago accuses the singer and politician who runs the One Love Beach of steadily encroaching onto his land to expand his beach.
Nyago alleges that in 2017, while he was representing Kampala in the United States (and therefore out of the country most of the time), Bobi Wine schemed and reportedly encroached onto his land.
The diplomat further claims that Bobi Wine’s men slashed his gardens of sweet potatoes, cassava, among other crops. Nyago’s worker Eric Koolya would report the matter to him, and he took steps to save his property from reportedly being grabbed by the Ugandan opposition politician.
The envoy says that Bobi Wine has since used the ‘illegally’ annexed land to expand his One Love Beach and has since constructed two stages for his music performances. Ambassador Nyago is concerned that although he dragged Bobi Wine to court in a civil suit in 2018, four years later, the backlog in the Ugandan court system has made it difficult for his case to be heard.
As the court continues to delay, Bobi Wine has continued to use the said land, which is a key link of the singer’s One Love Beach to the Busabala Landing Site, for commercial benefit, something that Ambassador Nyago said is unfair to him. He wants this dispute, which is really a dispute between two powerful and wealthy neighbors, resolved expeditiously so that he can use his land.
Both Bobi Wine and Ambassador Nyago claim ownership of the land and, as expected, the NUP leader has previously argued that the state wants to use the envoy to chase him off the land which he claims to have legally acquired. Before Nyango ran to court, there were attempts to resolve the matter in an amicable manner but these collapsed as both camps kept claiming the true ownership of the piece of land.
With court delaying justice, Nyago recently filed a complaint with the Uganda Police Force and the force’s Land Protection Unit visited the land under dispute and are expected to produce their report in coming months.
This is not the first time Bobi Wine is being involved in land wrangles. In January 2022, it emerged that there was ‘trouble in Principal’s Paradise’ as he risked losing his Magere Land. (See Details Here).
