Hundreds of vendors at Kibuye market along Old Entebbe Road have asked the government to block the one million-person march being organized by the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party.

The leaders and supporters of NUP are currently mobilizing to receive their party President, Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, from Entebbe International Airport on Thursday, October 5th, and march through major trading centers along the old Entebbe road up to the City Centre.

On Wednesday, the local traders operating from Kibuye market and boda boda operators held a media briefing and appealed to the government to stop this march, saying it would affect their businesses.

Joyce Makanga, the organizing secretary for all markets in Uganda, says vendors’ operations are often interfered with whenever there is violent protest by the opposition.

“We get our working capital from loans, and right now we have just taken our children back to school. Our children die in this kind of unregulated procession while others are arrested, never to be supported later by those who mobilized them to participate,” said Makanga.

Makanga asked vendors to boycott the march since it will gravely hamper their business activities, adding that Bobi Wine should be allowed to address his supporters from an enclosed space.

Salim Kagombe, another leader at Kibuye market, urged NUP leaders to use the Entebbe Express Highway and join the Northern Bypass to avoid interfering with their trading activities.

“It is usually vendors who suffer the most whenever a riot is held within Kampala; we incur many losses, yet we are never compensated by either the organizers of such an unregulated procession or the government,” said Kagombe.

According to Kagombe, once Kyagulanyi and his supporters are not controlled by the authority, they won’t hesitate to sue the government for compensation for their lost property.

Fred Kazzibwe, the chairman of Kibuye Market, called upon the government to provide protection to people to avoid loss of life and their businesses.

According to Kazzibwe, NUP’s goons usually resort to chaos whenever vendors don’t join their illegal engagement.

Kyagulanyi is expected to return to Uganda after two weeks of the’ Diaspora’s mobilization tour in the USA and South Africa, among others. The opposition party has also announced plans to resume the third phase of the mobilization tour.