By Ruth Faith Nakanwagi

Land wrangles that are tearing apart families and costing lives and livelihoods continue to rock the countryside.

Night Naggujja narates how her own mother hacked her with a panga and even dug her grave where she intended to bury her! The shocking drama is over land that Naggujja's grandfather bequeathed to her.

Naggujja narrates that she was raised by her grandfather, Donantino Tazaalika, who gave her a plot of land with a house on it in Kitubulu Ttanda, Entebbe Municipality.

Her grandfather told her that her mother, Agnes Namuwonge Jjuuko, would be the caretaker of the land until she was old enough to take over it. Unknown to her was that a possible exit off the planet had been created for her.

She says when her grandfather died she did not bury him because she was at school. Her auntie only picked her from school for the last funeral rites where she was duly announced as the rightful heiress to the property her grandfather had bequeathed her.

She says when returned to school her mother told her she had gotten her a better school and took her away. Little did she know this was the last time she would see a chalk board.

Her mother instead took her home to look after her younger step siblings. She says she was mistreated until she fled to her house that her grandfather had left her.

This set off a series of altercations with her mother who started witch hunting her and chased her from the land. She says her mother told her to go to her father's relatives (whom she did not know) and even said she had never owned any land there. Her mother has never told her who her father is.

Naggujja says she sought refuge at friends' homes. Along the way she got married. This, atleast according to her estimation, would give her peace of mind and solace from her mother's continued harassment.

She says after five years in marriage, she fled her marital home due to continued battering and decided to go back and reclaim her land instead of being at the mercy of a callous husband.

She says she started baking bricks on her land, only to rekindle her mother's fury. Following continued persecution, her aunties intervened. Her mother had also taken over rentals that her grandfather had left her. These could have been her source of income.   She says she decided to distance her self from her mother out of respect and peace.

Naggujja also discovered that her mother had registered her land in her step father's names and her other properties had been given away to her step siblings.

Left with no option, she started a small bar to make some little income for survival. She says one day, her mother attacked her with a panga and cut her on the arm (above) and smashed to pieces every thing she had.

Naggujja was rushed to hospital where she received treatment for her injuries. When she returned home her mother told her she had been praying for her death so that she could bury her.

Shockingly, her mother showed her a hole she had dug and told her that would have been her resting place had her prayers been 'answered'!

Nagujja says concerned authorities told her mother that she was the rightful owner of the land, but she will not yield. Nagujja says she fled from the area.

" I no longer stay in the area for fear of my life. I wonder why my own mother would treat me like that," she said.

Mother speaks

When Agnes Namuwonge was contacted on phone, she shouted back saying the land agreement Naggujja had was forged because the witnesses on it were not convincing.

"Naggujja only wants to sell the land with her auntie Nalwanga and her uncle is untrustworthy," she said of Naggujja and her relatives.

Whe she was asked about the attack on her daughter she said Naggujja was falsely accusing her because she was the one holding a bottle which it could have broken and injured her.

Namuwonge also denied digging a grave saying the hole was meant to be a rubbish pit. When she was asked about the land her father bequeathed Nagujja, she went mute.