EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Muteesa’s Doctor, Dr Kasasa Floors Kabaka in 500-acre Mutungo Hill Land Case After 20-Year Court Battle

On May 24, 1966, Kabaka Edward Muteesa II, a decorated captain in the British Grenadier Guards, fled his palace after being attacked by Idi Amin’s soldiers on the orders of Milton Obote.

Muteesa did not have a penny and lived on handouts in London, UK. 

The Queen’s government was reluctant to provide financial support to Muteesa because London feared to antagonise Obote.

Moreso, the Kabaka had earlier clashed with the Queen in 1953, and 1961 when Buganda wanted to secede from Uganda. 

In 1953, Governor Andrew Cohen on orders of the Queen, had exiled Muteesa to Britain.

Muteesa continued to live as a pauper until life became unbearable. 

At one time, officials in London asked Muteesa how he was surviving in London. He told them he was living on less than 6 pounds per day. 

Muteesa was asked if he had any properties he wished to liquidate to raise money. 

In May 1968, Muteesa, according to court records, decided to sell his 640 acres of Land on Mutungo Hill, a Kampala suburb.

Muteesa signed a special Power of Attorney, granting his sister Nalinya Mpologoma authority to sell and transfer the land to a ready and willing buyer.

Sir Edward Muteesa

ChimpReports understands the Power of Attorney was brought to Uganda and registered on May 10, 1968 by former Democratic Party boss and city lawyer, Benedicto Kiwanuka.

The land was on June 13, 1968 sold to Paul Kwemalamala Kintu, a businessman from Masaka. 

Interestingly, four months later (November 1986) a company owned by Ben Kiwanuka, lawyer Lawrence Sebalu and former Bank of Uganda Governor, Joseph B Mubiru – known as Lake View Properties – acquired the same land from Kwemalamala 

This raised concerns that perhaps Kwemalamala was used by the Kiwanukas as a proxy in case Obote learnt about the transaction to help his arch foe in London. 

Nevertheless, it is understood the proceeds from the sale of Mutungo land were taken by then Kenya’s Attorney General Charles Njonjo to Muteesa in London.

Muteesa had studied with Njonjo at King’s College Buddo. 

Hell breaks loose 

With time, the sale of Mutungo property to raise funds for Muteesa became public knowledge, enraging Dr Obote. 

According to former Land Commission official, Kulumba Kiingi, “after one or two weeks when the sale was leaked to the press and fell into Obote’s ears, he became furious and wanted to know how and when Muteesa visited Uganda to conduct the sale.”

According to a 2002 correspondence to Mengo lawyers, Kulumba recounted: “I was nearly picked by Akena Adoko/Aggrey Awori’s General Service Unit operatives when it became known that I am a Muganda.”

Kulumba said he was protected by Mr Wilikinson, the Registrar of titles, against any “possible harassment by security agencies.” 

The media did not spare Muteesa. 

‘The People’ newspaper of December 21, 1968 quoted Ignatius Musazi, an icon of the Uganda Independence struggle, saying it was a “crime of the highest order that Muteesa after the desecration of our country, should be granted liberty to aportion a part of the debris he left to boot out money for his evil schemes against the Republic.” 

In response, Kiwanuka told the media that he had not bought land from Muteesa but “from another person who had bought the land from Muteesa.” 

Bank loan 

Meanwhile, Lake View Properties later used the Mutungo land as security to borrow money from Barclays Bank but failed to pay back. 

Six years down the road, the bank decided to sell the collateral to recover its money. 

Sensing the bank would sell the property at a giveaway price, the Kiwanukas in 1979, quickly moved around in search of a buyer before zeroing on Muteesa’s former private doctor and close friend, Dr Mohamed Buwule Kasasa.

Following the attack on Lubiri, Dr Kasasa, who had earlier served as Mengo’s District Medical Officer, fled to Kasese. 

He opened a pharmacy in Kasese, western Uganda, which thrived, enabling him to make a huge fortune. 

When Amin kicked out Asians in 1972, Kasasa opened a pharmacy along Kampala road, making a killing at a time of  a huge shortage of medicines and household essentials. 

He bought a house on two acres of land in Buziga, flats in Mengo and was able to send over ten kids to the best universities in the United States, Britain and Ukraine – paying school fees in cash. 

“Money was not a problem to me,” recalled Kasasa in an exclusive interview with ChimpReports in Kampala a few days ago.

Kasasa paid Shs 1,000,000 to Barclays Bank which handed him Mutungo land.

We need your land 

Upon acquiring the land, Dr Kasasa started developing some of it. He even sold off about 100 acres to wealthy Kampala elite to build posh houses on Mutungo Hill. 

Many years later, Kasasa was at his home in Buziga when some men from Mengo reportedly approached him and demanded 25 acres from him at a free cost.

Kasasa said he was willing to sell them the land if they wanted it.

The men left Kasasa’s house after warning  him of serious consequences in future. Indeed, his life would later turn for the worst.

Court battles 

In 2006, the Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi dragged Kasasa to court, claiming Kasasa had illegally acquired the Mutungo land and that the Power of Attorney used to transfer its ownership from Muteesa was forged. 

Kabaka also claimed that Lake View Properties and Kwemalamala were “more or less the same persons “ involved in the alleged fraudulent transfer and putting a caveat on the land.

The Kabaka argued in court that while the land was under Kwemalamala, Kiwanuka and his colleagues caveated the property claiming to be co-owners of the land. 

Three days after the incorporation of Lake View Properties, said Kabaka, the same caveators withdrew both caveats to pave the way for the sale of the land to Kiwanuka’s company.

On top of Kasasa, Kabaka sued the government for Shs 192bn over wrongly reallocating ownership of the land on Mutungo hill. 

After a protracted legal battle, the Court of Appeal on November 14, 2022 ruled that Kabaka, having admitted to losing the land he sought to be compensated for, could not at the same time be allowed to go back to the recovery of the same land from Dr Kasasa.

Court agreed with Kasasa that the sale and transfer of the land to him was lawful and that he enjoyed the protection afforded to bonafide purchasers for value who can not be ejected from the land. 

Interview 

To Kasasa, the court ruling was a sigh of relief. It marked the end of 20 years of what he describes as “torture” as he waited for justice. 

“I feel very happy. I don’t think if Muteesa had been around, he would have allowed anyone to interfere with me or cause me any problems because I was friendly to him. I was his personal doctor and I knew quite a lot about his private life. I was very close to him,” said a tearful Kasasa.

“Muteesa would not have allowed anybody to cause me problems. I am sure wherever he is, he is turning in his grave. It’s terrible. 20 years down the road. This is the problem I have had with Mengo. They don’t know what I did for him – the kabaka.”

He observed: “Muteesa was a very strong-willed man. A very caring man. He was very popular and generous. He was a different character. He was very difficult to convince but generally a likable person. He was very kind and could not take a commoner’s property. He couldn’t do it.”

Kasasa said he could hardly understand why the Kabaka supported efforts to deprive the doctor of his land. 

“Even Kabaka Mutebi, I was with him in Tteefe bank. He was Ssabataka. I was chairman of the bank and Mutebi naturally needed financial help and I provided it most of the time. He is one of the people taking me through this 20 years of torture. It is terrible, unforgivable,” he cried. 

Kasasa, now in his 80s, said he was not surprised by the ruling because the case was so obvious. 

“It was a frameup. They (Buganda) did not have any cause of action. There was nothing wrong. I expected I was going to win. My disappointment has been with the judiciary because they delayed justice for 20 years in a case that was straightforward. I was a bonafide purchaser protected by the law. A third buyer ten years later from the bank. you can not sue for recovery land,” he argued. 

Asked how his life was affected by the suit, Kasasa responded: “While the case was in court, I found difficulty in traveling from Uganda from time to time. It disrupted my normal life. The whole land was caveated. For the last 20 years, I couldn’t do any work on it.”

He added: “My livelihood was shattered. My children – I would have sent them abroad but I didn’t have money.  Even the cash UNRA wanted to give me for land, they blocked it when I needed money badly for medical treatment abroad. Very merciless and inhumane. “

Kasasa emphasised: “I suffered immensely. The mental torture. For a man to be denied access to his hard-earned wealth – 500 acres of land in Kampala. What would be the turnover? They (Mengo) had blocked everything. Their lawyers wrote to everyone I had negotiations with as if the case had been decided. They blocked Uganda Railways Corporation, National Water and Sewerage Corporation and UNRA from buying my land. It was not just a caveat.”

The retired doctor now hopes that the caveats on the prime and scenic land on Mutungo hill overlooking Lake Victoria will be vacated to allow him make good use of it in his last days on earth