Budadiri MP Nakiyi Wants Elgon Landslide Victims to Retain Ancestral Land

What the report says

Budadiri East MP Julius Nakiyi is urging government to rethink how it handles families being moved from landslide-prone parts of the Elgon Sub-region. He wants households to be relocated to safer areas while still keeping ownership of their ancestral land, rather than having that land transferred to the State after they leave. The proposal was reported by Nile Post and focuses on communities in Bugisu, where repeated landslides have made some settlements unsafe.

Under the current resettlement plan, eligible households are expected to receive Shs18 million to support relocation, and vacated land would be taken over for conservation purposes and incorporated into Mount Elgon National Park through the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Government has identified about 13,000 households, or roughly 100,000 people, for relocation from high-risk areas. Nakiyi argues that protecting lives does not have to mean stripping families of land that has supported them for generations.

He proposes a model that keeps ownership with the affected families but imposes strict controls on what can happen on the land. In his view, limited activities such as tree planting, agroforestry and suitable fruit growing could be allowed after environmental assessment, while the most dangerous areas would remain off-limits to settlement. He says a permitting system involving local authorities and environmental agencies could regulate use.

The debate comes against the backdrop of long-running landslide disasters in Mount Elgon, including the deadly March 2010 tragedy in Bududa. Nakiyi says Bugisu leaders plan to seek parliamentary time to push for a review of the ownership rules, arguing that similar environmental and land-rights questions could arise in other vulnerable regions such as Rwenzori and Kigezi.