Five security personnel have been detained by Hoima police after reports that they fired shots at Dr. Sam Mayanja, the Minister of State for Lands, in the Hoima area.
Vincent Omara, 28, Vincent Tusingwire, 26, Cleophas Kansiime, 22, Gad Mairiho, 42, and Robert Abekani, 25, have been named as the security guards employed by Pyramid Security Group.
The five are being held in Hoima Central Police Station, according to Julius Hakiza, spokesman for the Albertine Region Police.
In a separate interview with Uganda Radio Network (URN) on Tuesday, Hakiza stated that the guns that were used had been seized and were being kept at the Hoima central police station as exhibits.
According to Hakiza, the Resident State Attorney-RSA has been consulted by the police over the charges of threatening violence by shooting that have already been brought against the suspects.
The security guards were stationed on a plot of land that was being challenged by more than 2,000 residents of the villages of Rwobunyonyi, Kirindasojo, and Kihohoro in the Buraru sub-county of the Hoima region, as well as Hoima City businessman Fred Mugamba.
Locals are said to have petitioned Mayanja, charging Mugamba with attempting to expel them forcibly from the ancestral land they had lived on for decades. The disputed area of land is about 810 hectares in size.
The family asserts that they have lived on the disputed property since the 1940s and questions Mugamba’s claim to it given that he is not even a local.
On Thursday, as the minister approached the disputed area to visit it, the guards opened fire and fired several bullets into the air. Later, they left the region.
The minister instructed the district’s security to look for the security guards and have them arrested when they were there, along with Hoima Resident District Commissioner-RDC Rogers Mbabazi, Hoima District Police Commander-DPC Jackson Bogere, and other security officers.