In 2015, Barnabas Ndawula joined the Buganda Land Board (BLB) as the head of the legal department.
He hit the ground running. He was very active in helping some of the land cases that had bedeviled the board.
“He was jolly and likeable but he also usually kept to himself,” said one person who has worked with him.
He was also very active on the media circuit giving several interviews about the activities of BLB.
However amid all this glamour, he was dealing with his ‘demons’ as they say.
A few months into the job, Ndawula had come into contact with a one Herbert Musiitwa Mulasa who wanted to grab land that belonged to a one John Mulindwa.
Court heard that while scheming on how to grab Mulindwa’s land, Ndawula allegedly advised Musiitwa to drag the Kabaka to court, asking it to compel the Kabaka to issue him a leasehold title on block 273 plot 4849 which already belonged to John Mulindwa.
After Musiitwa went to court, Ndawula, as the head of the legal department, chose the law firm of Kasumba, Kugonza Advocates to represent the Kabaka.
Court heard that Ndawula advised the lawyers from that law and Musiitwa to enter into a consent judgment on July 18 2016 where the Kabaka agreed to give Musiitwa a lease on the said land which measures 0.097 hectares.
Trouble came when Ndawula then impersonated the Kabaka and signed as the Kabaka.
At the time of signing the consent judgment, Ndawula was not even Kabaka’s legal representative or his attorney.
However, Ndawula’s schemes came to light after Musiitwa went to court to have the consent judgment enforced.
That’s when other officials of Buganda Land Board got to know of it and decided to sack Ndawula.
He is now a lecturer at Law Development Centre (LDC).
