Kampala — Masindi MPs and local leaders have opposed the Land Amendment Bill, saying it is aimed at dividing the Banyoro and the Baganda.

They suggested that the Bill should be stayed until the Government resolves the matter of the 9,000 square miles demanded by Mengo and contentious land issues in Bunyoro.

"In Bunyoro, we have had a problem of the Balaalo (pastoralists) illegally settling and grazing on our land in Buliisa district. The Government has paid a deaf ear to our struggle against these wanderers," Kibanda county MP Owoor Amooti Otada (NRM) said.

This was during a consultative meeting on the Bill at Masindi Town Education Hall on Friday.

"Why is the Government speeding up the Bill? We feel that there are issues that must be sorted out in Bunyoro before the Land Act is amended."

Otada added: "The Government claims that Mengo's 9,000 square miles disappeared. We cannot pretend and say that the mailo akenda (9,000 square miles) is not there. All of us know that the land has been existent. How do we expect the Baganda to feel now that the Government says their land is not there?"

Woman MP Jalia Bintu and LC5 chairman Steven Birija urged the Government to give Bunyoro residents certificates of occupancy since "most of our land is owned customarily."

The leaders argued that since Bunyoro land was customarily owned, unscrupulous people might use section 32B of the Bill to grab people's land.

The section provides for seven years' imprisonment if a person evicts another who claims interest in land under customary tenure without a court order.

"I will quit the NRM if the Land Bill is passed," said Thomas Mugeni, the Kakuuto parish LC2 chairman.