Mailo is a unique form of

land tenure In Common law#History, common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land "owned" by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement betw ...

in Uganda. Around 9 per cent of the country's land is held under the mailo system, which is similar to freehold. It was set up by the 1900 Buganda Agreement.

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 30 May 192816 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until Uganda–Tanzania War, his overthrow in 1979. He ruled as a Military dictatorship, ...

then made all land publicly owned, and the 1995

Constitution of Uganda The Constitution of Uganda is the supreme law of Uganda. The fourth and current constitution was promulgated on 8 October 1995. It sanctions a republican form of government with a powerful President. The first Constitution was adopted in 1962 onl ...

reintroduced mailo.

History

In the 1900 Buganda Agreement, the

Uganda Protectorate The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the Br ...

(part of the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

) granted the Buganda Kingdom land because it had helped the colonisers conquer the country. The Bugandan aristocratic class was awarded land parcels broken up into plots of square miles, hence the name "mailo". These parcels came with farmers in situ, therefore the mailo system produced private owners for

customary land Customary land is land held under customary land tenure and the enjoyment of some use of land that arises through customary, unwritten practice rather than through written codified law. It is the tenure usually associated with indigenous communitie ...

, whilst the tenants continued to work the land. In 1928, amendments were made to give the tenants more rights. After the

1971 Ugandan coup d'état The 1971 Ugandan coup d'état was a military coup d'état that overthrew the then president of Uganda Milton Obote. The coup occurred on January 25, 1971, while Obote was attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Singapore, and wa ...

, all land was made publicly owned following

's 1975 Land Reform Decree. In theory this destroyed the mailo system, although little was done in practice. Under the 1995

, mailo was reintroduced and land can have four forms of ownership: mailo (official or private), customary, freehold or

leasehold A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a Lease, lessee or a tenant has rights of real property by some form of title (property), title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold right ...

. Tenant rights were then boosted by the 1998 Land Act and its 2010 amendment. Mailo ownership of registered land means holding title to it in perpetuity and thus it is similar to freehold. Mailo exists in western and central Uganda, with an estimated 9 per cent of the land mass being owned in this way. The mailo system is unique to Uganda. The Kabaka Mailo was land given to the king which is now owned by the Buganda Land Board. Official Mailo was land given to certain officials and it is now also owned by the Buganda Land Board. Private Mailo was land given to around 1,300 people and institutions such as churches between 1900 and 1908. This land is still owned privately, complete with longstanding tenants, and confusion over the differences between owner and tenant rights has led to conflicts. Bukerere is one place where land is still owned by mailo.

References

{{Reflist Land tenure Law of Uganda