Gulu District Local Government has mounted a frantic search and plea for land in the district for the expansion of Gulu University in an effort to avoid missing out on billions of shillings in grants for infrastructural development from the African Development Bank (ADB). 

Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, the district LCV chairperson of Gulu said on Thursday that the district will not sit and see the institution lose the Shs28 billion infrastructural support. 

Mapenduzi noted that the district will take it upon itself to look for land for the university to allow expansion.  He said that the district will write to the National Forestry Authority (NFA) through the Chief Administration Officer’s (CAO) office in Gulu to request for 93 hectors of land in Laroo Forest Ward in Gulu Municipality. 

Currently, the district has intervened in numerous on-going land conflicts between the institution and local residents occupying land neighbouring the university. 

Professor Nyeko Pen Mogi, the university’s Vice Chancellor told a meeting with some of the land owners that the he received communication from the ministry of education and sports saying that Gulu University needs to provide evidence of ownership of land totalling to 742 acres before it could receive a grant for infrastructural development. 

Professor Pen Mogi said that the African Development Bank is giving a grant amounting to US$12 million meant for infrastructural developments in public universities. 

He asked communities to grant that university land so that the institution can continue to provide quality education in the region. 

In 2009, the university sought to forcefully evict people living on land adjacent to the campus but the move was halted by a court case.