President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was overwhelmed and openly told angry traders to stop intimidating him but instead listen to him just like he also listened to them for more than two hours.

Museveni made the statement after some traders started shouting on top of their voices.

Some of them even started to move out of Kololo while he was still speaking.

However, they were stopped by Special Forces Command (SFC) Commandos from getting out of the Kololo Independence ground gates until the President finished speaking.

SFC Commandos told some of these angry traders that they had come to listen to the President and since he gave them time, they should also wait until he finishes. One by one they were forced to go back to their seats in the tent.

President Museveni’s 1981 war comrade and political competitor Dr. Kizza Besigye revealed that it is the first time in many years that he has seen Museveni being publicly embarrassed by civilians.

However, the mighty Grapevine has exclusively learnt that what happened at Kololo was not accidental but a planned move which was defused by SFC Commandos.

Highly placed sources within traders leadership revealed that on the fateful day of 7th May 2024, a section of traders leadership held a private meeting in the morning at the offices of the Kampala Acarders Traders Association (KATA) chaired by Godfrey Katongole.

Others in the attendance included; Moses Lwegaba on behalf of Katukazane shoe traders, John Kabanda who represented the Kampala New Generation Traders Association and also the Federation of Uganda Traders Association.

Sources divulged that the gist of the meeting was to strategise on how to counter the submissions of Dr. Thaddeus Musoke Nagenda the chairperson of Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) and his Secretary Isa Ssekito.

They suspected that KACITA had plans of diverting the President from addressing the real issues by resorting to praising him.

They alleged that they established that on several occasions, KACITA has held private meetings with the president without the knowledge of the traders.

Before the meeting openly started, Kabanda was grilled and placed on the spot to declare his secret relationship with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) senior minister Hajjat Minsa Kabanda after his colleagues openly told him that he also might be working with their enemies.

Kabanda denied the allegations.

The traders leadership became suspicious of Kabanda when he supported Minister Minsa in one of the precursor heated meeting at Hotel African where she was trying to convince all traders not to bring the issue of landlords who are mistreating them before the president because it was not discussed in the previous meeting held in State House in April 2024.

They told Kabanda that what he did to support the Minister was an act of betrayal because he also knows very well that landlords harass them just like the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing Solution (EFRIS).

They started accusing him of being bribed by landlords.

Traders disclosed that it seems the landlords who Kabanda wanted to save are the ones who supported his lavish wedding last week. The meeting ended in fighting and Minister Minsa was saved by his security.

In the Tuesday meeting, Kabanda assured fellow traders leadership that he is with them and a decision was taken to inform their respective members on their different WhatsApp groups to storm out of the meeting immediately once they discover that Museveni is not going to ban the use of EFRIS.,

This is what they tried to do but the move was fused by SFC Commandos.

However, before Museveni addressed the traders, some of their leaders had successfully executed their mission of exposing Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja Musafire and Junior Minster for investment Evelyn Anite who they declared a mafia who takes fake investors to President Museveni who give her incentives.

They accused the said investors of facilitating smuggling of goods into the country.

Minister Minsa, who feared that traders were going to embarrass her before her boss was forced off the microphone because they were shouting at her for not helping them.

Sources said that the ministers were embarrassed before their boss because some leaders of the traders have information that they are sealing deals with KACITA leadership which are costing the common trader.

Traders further sent a warning message to President Museveni, his ministers and Members of Parliament (MP) that if their issues are not solved they are ready to stand against them or support by financially facilitating their opponents in the coming elections.

Democratic Party’s Richard Ssebamala the Bukoto Central MP warned President Museveni to be very careful with traders issues because for a long time, they have not been involving themselves in political issues especially during elections but only concentrated on their businesses.

But now that they have issues, if these concerns are not properly resolved, it may be a spark for his downfall.

Some Ministers were shocked when angry traders praised fired trade minister Harriet Ntambazi telling Museveni that mafias in the Ministry of Finance and those in the Trade Ministry fought her and misled the President even though she always acted swiftly in resolving their problems.

theGrapevine established that Ntambazi always supported Kabanda’s leadership and she was a ground minister who attended traders meetings in Kikuubo and other places and one time she nearly survived being tear gassed by police in Kikuubo who accussed he of attending an illegal meeting.

However, former trade minister Amelia Kyambadde claims that people who make such statements before the president are always paid by the side which is fighting a certain government official who is embarrassed before the president.

Nabbanja denied the allegations that she is not responding to Kabanda’s letters and explained to the President that she has never seen any letter from Kabanda.

She wondered why Kabanda didn’t come to her country home in Kakumiro district since he is a son from the neighbouring Mubende district.

Sources disclosed that Kampala city junior minister Christopher Kabuye Kyofatogabye predicted that he was going to be embarrassed before the president because the traders accussed him of being very arrogant and using the divide and rule method to frustrate their fight against high taxation.

He decided not to attend the meeting but his car was cited at the premises of Kololo Independent ground.

Even though the traders were served drinks and food, with some claiming that over 20 cows were slaughtered for them, some have decided that they will not attend the next meeting  with the President come 20th of June 2026.

Sources added that a section of traders’ leadership are buying the proposal that the 20^th June meeting should only be attended by their leaders. But Kabanda insists that all traders should attend.

Other traders want to get an expert in tax laws to lead them during their negotiations with URA insisting that URA officials are exploiting their ignorance on tax issues to double tax them.

Sources among the traders disclosed that they have started engaging Kabanda not to politicize their fight against high taxation by threatening that if EFRIS is not banned, they will carry out a three months strike by closing their shops.

However, Dr. Besigye predicted that Museveni is going to use guerrilla war tactics to divide traders and very soon they are going to start fighting each other.

Joseph Tamale Mirundi the senior presidential advisor on media told theGrapevine that Museveni will not ban EFRIS because banning it will attract other people including policemen and women, teachers, doctors to strike because they will have established that he fears strike.

He added that traders lack serious knowledgeable leaders who can compromise Museveni to side with them.

He insisted that Museveni clearly know that people like Ssekito are dealers who are always used by his opponents and government mafias to pressurize him on traders’ issues, which is why he does not respect them.

He questioned the expertise of URA and Ministry of Finance when it comes to traders and tax issues because instead of widening the tax base they are harassing the poor traders.

He however challenged Museveni on the issue of stopping traders from importing goods from abroad revealing that much of the products which they would have exported with additional value are monopolised by members of his family so the traders don’t want to enter open competition.

By Sengooba Alirabaki

The mighty Grapevine has exclusively landed on information showing that there is a clandestine mobilization plan to force embattled Speaker of Parliament Annet Anita Among out of office over sanctions.

Early this month, the United Kingdom announced sanctions against Among, former Karamoja affairs senior minister Marry Goretti Kitutu and her junior Agnes Nandutu over their involvement in corruption practices at the cost of vulnerable Ugandans.

A few days after the UK sanctions, the United Arab Emirates also sanctioned the said individuals. It should be remembered that United States of America was the first to put travel restriction on Speaker Among and she confirmed to parliament that they were witch haunting her for chairing the parliamentary session that passed the Anti-Homosexuality bill which was signed into a law by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

Highly placed sources said that the move to force Among out of office is spearheaded by controversial Lwemiyaga county legislator Theodore Ssekikubo who was also interested in the Speakership position when Jacob Oulanyah died in 2021 but was not given the National Resistance Movement (NRM) ticket.

Ssekikubo confirmed to theGrapevine that it is a shame for Among who holds the third powerful office in the government to be internationally indicted.

Ssekikuubo disclosed that something has to be done to save the country’s image internationally.

He explained that Uganda is a strong member of the Commonwealth, an organisation that unites former British colony and currently as the chairperson of the Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth parliaments, Uganda’s speaker has to participate in the meetings including the one which is expected to take place at the end of this year in London Britain.

Unfortunately she is not going to attend that meeting on behalf of Uganda because she was sanctioned by Britain.

Ssekikubo wants the Attorney General to come out and interpret what that means on Commonwealth laws.

“When our friend Jacob Oulanyah who was the Speaker of Parliament died, the Attorney General come out and interpreted that we cannot bury him before electing the new speaker. Now we want to know will the deputy speaker Thomas Tayebwa represent us in those international meetings because his office is very different from the office of the speaker when it comes to the laws of Uganda,” Ssekikubo said.

He insisted that Among should resign to give the international community confidence that the Ugandan government is very serious when it comes to fighting corruption.

Ssekikubo warned that if she remains in office, many donor countries and organisations including serious investors are going to stop bringing their money into the country fearing that it will be mismanaged.

He added that as an experienced legislator, he expected the sanctions against Among and it is the reason why he tried to save her by bringing to the floor of parliament the issue of the corruption allegation made against parliament leadership through the social media exhibition but instead of listening to him and taking action, the speaker herself rubbished him.

He noted that when donor countries start seeing a speaker who is in the middle of corruption allegations stopping senior legislators like him from discussing these accusation, it means that she is above the law and the only way to tame her is through sanctioning her.

He added that the country also needed a good explanation of how the speaker presided over a meeting where parliamentary commissioners including the former Leader of Opposition Mathius Nsamba awarded themselves billions of funds without proper procedures.

theGrapevine has however established that anti-Among groups know very well that Museveni is likely not to force her to resign in the middle of this term but they will use the sanction as a de-campaigning weapon come 2026.

Charles Rwomushana a former State House operative related that the only thing that will save Museveni’s government from the international community is to sacrifice Among.

“I think Museveni will do what he did to Amama Mbabazi, Sam Kutesa and Gilbert Bukenya when they mismanage the 2007 Ghogm money. He may order for her arrest, charge and imprison her but at the end of the movie she will be exonerated,” he said.

When she won the Speakership race, Among told her enemies that she will be on top of the parliament leadership for 20 years. She was elected as a deputy speaker in 2021, in 2022 she was then elected the speaker of parliament after the death of Oulanyah.

State House sources claim that Museveni was not comfortable with Among’s candidature and he supported Jacob Oboth Oboth the current Defense and Veteran affairs Minister but he was overruled by members of the NRM Central Executive Committee (CEC) and NRM caucus in parliament.

By Sengooba Alirabaki

Maverick four time presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye has narrated how he forced his longtime political opponent President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to think about his death.

Appearing on Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi’s CBS radio, Besigye boasted that he is not regretting the energy he has invested in to fight against President Museveni’s leadership because it has started yielding fruits and Ugandans should come together and harvest because the man is at his weakest point.

He explained that in 2001, the time he started fighting Museveni, he was very powerful physically and financially to the extent that he had the capacity to buy thousands of motorcycles to compromise his youthful supporters.

He added that Museveni had a lot of love from Ugandans and he used to travel without huge security but currently, because he is very sure that Ugandans are tired of him, he thinks that if he moves with small security they can attack him.

“I saw him exchanging words with traders at Kololo but the Museveni I know, to quarrel with civilians, I realised that the man is no longer in control of this country and Ugandans are just sleeping. They should wake up and throw him out of power” Besigye said.

He said that because Museveni doesn’t have money to spend, he feels that traders protesting the tax burden he placed on them are threatening his stay in power.

Besigye pleaded with Ugandans to wake up and protest against Museveni’s long stay in power claiming that he no longer has those strong fighting weapons he had between 2001-2016.

He explained how in his ongoing countrywide tour, he observed that the anti-riot vehicles that former Inspector General of Police Gen. Edward Kale Kayihura bought when he was still commanding police to fight opposition have been grounded.

He boasted that it was not accidental for Museveni to publically tell the world that very soon he is going to die.

He rallied Ugandans to fight for their country because they are the ones who are still going to stay in it.

“Now traders have started but they cannot fight this war alone, farmers also should join them and stop sending food to Kampala. I’m telling you those soldiers will come out of the barracks and force Museveni out of power so that farmers send food to them to eat,” Besigye said.

He said that the reason why he is carrying out countrywide political tours is because he wants to awaken Ugandans and he is jappy that the public is responding.

Besigye confirmed that he does not regret the energy he spent in FDC which he claims the current party leadership at Najjanankumbi sold to President Museveni because of their personal agenda.

“I left my well-paying job at Nairobi hospital, left my profession as a medical doctor and spend five years in the bush fighting for good governance in Uganda, the situation was harsh in the bush I’m telling you. We spent days without eating, drinking but running. The building of FDC was somehow easy compared to life in the bush,” Besigye said.

He assured Ugandans that elections will not overthrow Museveni because he uses them to divide the forces that fight him by allowing them to win parliament and local government elections so that they are paid at the end of the month, given allowances which makes them feel like they have power.

He explained that such opposition leaders told to fight the sitting government, they feel like the one telling them to do so doesn’t want them to enjoy power they won in their respective offices hence diverting their main mission of fighting Museveni.

By Grapevine Reporter