Open Letter to Iganga Municipality Town Clerk on Selective Demolition of Roadside Kiosks

Dear Town Clerk Ms. Edith Turyasasirwa and Members of the Iganga Municipal Council,

I write to you today not as a mere observer, but as a son of this soil, a journalist, and a voice for the voiceless. I have watched with a heavy heart the ongoing operations to “clean” our town by chasing away roadside traders and demolishing their kiosks.

The pictures and videos circulating are heartbreaking. Properties worth millions of shillings—the life savings of ordinary mothers, fathers, and youth—have been reduced to rubble in a matter of hours. Yet what is most disturbing is not the demolition itself, but the selective manner in which it is being carried out.

As one of the victims, Mr. Ismael Magemeso painfully put it: “It’s unfortunate that many kiosks of the big ones are still standing, and for the poor ones they are intentionally destroyed on orders of individuals. If the municipality can use that excessive force on poor people in a rotten town, we hope they will use the same to corrupt officials who target stealing free public spaces in town. They should also come with clean hands to the faces of the people they have oppressed.”

Madam Town Clerk, Mayor, and Honourable Councillors of Iganga Municipality, these words are not from one man alone—they echo the cry of hundreds of families in Iganga today. The big kiosks belonging to the well-connected remain untouched, proudly displaying their goods, while the small ones of widows, school dropout youths, and struggling traders are crushed under the bulldozer.

This is not proper order. This is not development. This is selective justice, and selective justice is not justice at all.

Where is the incoming cohort of leaders? Their silence is louder than any bulldozer. The same leaders who campaigned on “serving the people” and “fighting poverty” have suddenly gone mute while the very people who voted for them are being humiliated and robbed of their only source of income. This is not good.

We are not against a clean and organized town. Far from it. But if public spaces must be freed, let it be done equally and humanely. Let the same force used on the poor traders’ kiosks be used against powerful individuals who have illegally grabbed road reserves, corridors, taxi park space, and public land for years.

Let alternative spaces be provided to those whose livelihoods have been destroyed. Let the law apply to all—big and small, rich and poor, connected and unconnected.

Iganga Municipal Council, you still have a chance to redeem your image. Stop the selective demolition immediately. Engage the affected traders in dialogue. Come clean. Show us that you serve the people of Iganga, not just the powerful few.

The eyes of the nation—and especially the eyes of the suffering traders of Iganga—are upon you. History will judge you not by how many kiosks you demolished, but by how justly and compassionately you treated the weakest among us.

I remain available for any engagement on this matter.
Yours in the service of truth and justice,

Omulangira Mudoola Miika
Journalist and Concerned Citizen of Iganga District