HOMELESS, PENILLESS! How Uganda Railways ruined my life with 15 kids to feed

By Stephen Okungu

I am Okungu Stephen, 47 years old, married with one wife & have a family of 15 to take care of.

I have been a resident of Kireku zone, Bweyogerere division, Kira municipality, Wakiso district, since 1993.

But unfortunately, in 2026 they divided the zone into two, whereby one side was named Upper Kireku then the lower side was named Kireku railway zone with full LC1 committee & a stamp & that is where my residence falls.

This village had over five thousand residents under over five hundred plot owners with three groups of estates claiming to be the landlords –Uganda Railway with their head office in Kampala, Nabikolo Estates with their head office in Cham Towers ground floor & Baruti Estates with their head office also in Kampala town.

Uganda Railway had always threatened to demolish our buildings. In 2005 we went to court to stop them & indeed the case was ruled in our favour. They came back again in 2021 during Covid but still we ran to court & they were stopped.

Now on 29/05/2023 at 11:00hrs, a team of people claiming that they were from Uganda Railway, spear headed by Brian & Josephine who claimed to be the Uganda Railway engineers plus Dan who claimed to be the Uganda Railway valuer officer, stormed our village/Kireku zone with three grader tractors while heavily guarded by UPDF & Uganda Police Force & destroyed all our buildings with all properties inside without any notice given neither compensation.

This so-called demolition/destruction to human life took six days— between 29th/ May to 5th/ June 2023, whereby over 3,000 buildings were graded down with thousands & thousands of turns of properties.

This left over 4,000 people homeless. I personally, I lost four plots, 31 permanent rental rooms that could give me revenue of about shs4M per month, & a residence of three bedrooms, sitting room, Kitchen & two stores plus over six tons of properties all lost.

I will never forget that day in life where the day light turned to be dark for me. I personally tried to plead with the so-called Brian & his barbaric team to give us time to remove our properties away but the guy was so rude like an alien from the sky who did not have any human sympathy in him.

I tried to call the RDC’s phone number for help but he could not pick it up at all. I tried the DISO, he told me, and he was in Namugongo shrine for a meeting. I called Chairman LC III Mr. Ssenkubuge Isaac, he told me he was at a burial place & he promised to send me a representative. I rang O/C C.I.D Bweyogerere Police Station but after explaining to her she claimed to be a wrong number. Later on our municipality Councilor Lady Naume rang the area MP, Hon Ssemujju Nganda & he is the only one who responded in two hours from the time of call & in his arrival, army & police mounted road block for him not until we (residents) have to force his way in.

And in this process, the army was beating people. They could not allow anyone to take photos. I saw journalists being beaten & arrested including the one of Bukedde that I saw physically.

After this terrain incident, we went to Bweyogerere Police station to launch our complaint but the O/C station refused to enter our case.

The perpetrators say we were compensated which is a lie. It is like we are losing hope in life. I am a man who worked so hard entirely in my life to come out of poverty but as I speak I am now vulnerable.

I sleep in the street; I have nothing to eat for myself, neither to give to my family. All my children have been sent away from school.

I have two children in University—1 in third year & another in 2nd year. I have four children in secondary schools—one in senior six, five, four & senior one but all are sent away from school.

I have two in P7, p6, p3, p2 & P1 all these are sent away from school back with me in the street. We had a loan of 9M that my wife had just got from the Brac bank institution, that we used to renovate one of our buildings that was demolished & she is now being hunted by the Brac financial institution to pay it back.

Sometimes rain comes & falls on us, cloudy dust raised by trailers covers us, sun comes & shines on us, we sleep hungry, sickness has erupted on us, it is only God who knows our situation, we look like we don’t even live on this planet earth.

So brother this is a very painful situation that we are going through & whoever can reach our voices to government stakeholders i.e. Prime Minister’s Office, President of the Republic of Uganda etc, we seek compensation & resettlement.

I personally beg for well wishers to help me support my children to get back to school & also get meals because the situation we are in is worse.

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