The Truth About Katikiro Mayiga’s House.
Mayiga and his wife Margaret bought the land in Lweza in 1995 and started building their home in 1996. It is private mailo land. They were keen to occupy the house before the end of the millennium and did so in 1999. It was incomplete.
He built it in the same way most Ugandans who genuinely make their money build their homes. They take time, one brick at a time. I was an undergraduate student at Makerere University and I lent a hand lifting a box or two to help them move into it. Over the years, they have kept improving this house until 2006 when they completed it seven years before his appointment as Katikkiro. Since his appointment as Katikkiro, Mayiga has not done anything to his private residence apart from regular maintenance such as painting.
In fact, in June 2013, with the official residence (Butikkiro) still occupied by government, Mayiga held Embaga ya Ddamula at Lweza which was attended by over 1500 people. I was a Secretary to the organising committee. Embaga ya Ddamula is a function a Katikkiro organizes to celebrate the appointment and managing to keep Ddamula from other people interested in it immediately after the Kabaka has handed it over to him. It is a cultural function.
Although the house is palatial, it is not something out of reach for him and his wife. I have known the Mayigas for many years and they like good things. But they mind so much about their name that they ensure the good things in life come from genuine hard work not through under table deals. To date, if you combine the years Mayiga and his wife have been working, it comes to about 25 years. So how can a couple that has a combined 25 years of working experience fail to build the kind of home in which they live today? If they worked for a combined 60 years and failed to build such a house, they would be total failures.
