John Kabanda the president of the Federation of Uganda Traders Association (FUTA) and the association spokesperson Moses Lwegaba are sharply divided on the move to riot at Prime Minister Robina Nabbanja’s Offices
Exclusively speaking to Ono Bwino, Lwegaba said that went through a painful struggle to secure audience with President Museveni at his Kisozi country home where they explained to him the hardships the traders were going through after losing their merchandises in the October 2025 floods which resulted from the mismanagement of Nakivubo drainage channel.
He explained that they told the President that before city businessman Hamis Kiggundu was permitted to build on a top the drainage channel, they did not suffer with floods even when it rained heavily.
He said that the President listened to them and understood the financial hardships they were going through because they even explained to him how banks and other financial institutions were on their necks over loans they secured to finance their businesses.
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He said that the president directed Nabbanja to supervise the process of compensating verified traders affected by floods and their details were verified by operatives from Internal Security Organisation (ISO) but since then, Nabbanja has been hiding from them
“We tried to access her in December 2025 and January 2026 but we were told to wait until the general elections are done. We were told that she was still in political campaigns. We waited until two weeks back when we returned to her office after being told that she was in the office but her assistants lied to us that she was not in the office, and what further angered us so much was she refused to pick our phone calls or even respond our messages,” Lwegaba said.
While the traders are still struggling to secure compensation promised by the President, the floods raided them last week and some traders lost merchandises worth billions of shillings.
This has infuriated them and they are now planning to storm Nabbanja’s office and riot from there so that government releases the money the president promised them.
“I’m not inciting violence against our national leaders like Nabbanja, but they need wake up call, enough is enough. We have been paying taxes to this government but now we have been turned into baggers,” Lwegaba said.
However, Kabanda disagreed with Lwegaba on rioting at Nabbanja’s offices and pleaded with traders to hold on as he pushes the concerned stakeholders to release the said funds.
He denied allegations that he connived with the concerned government officials and they shared the money among themselves.
Word was making rounds within traders circles that Kabanda and some government officials got the money and they shared it among themselves and he is now fooling them with excuses.
Ono Bwino tried to look for Nabbanja through her known phone numbers but she did not pick our calls.
