Uganda’s military continues to lay siege on the country’s largest non-state newspaper, one of the largest private news broadcasters, alongside other channels and radio stations owned by Nation Media Group (NMG), the largest media conglomerate in East and Central Africa.
Troops raided its Ugandan headquarters and the broadcasting centers located at the Serena Hotel in the capital, Kampala, just after midnight, around 1 am on Sunday, June 28.
Its television stations, including NTV, one of the most viewed private news broadcasters in the country, and the Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, “are being shut down from today!” military chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba posted on X.
By 5 am, NTV Uganda and Spark TV went off air. The NMG-owned radio stations, KFM and Dembe FM, fell silent. The newspaper did not roll out of its printing press that morning.
“From now on ALL bad stories about Uganda have to be cleared by my office! In Uganda, I DO NOT believe in a free press!” declared Kainerugaba, who is also the son and heir apparent of Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda since 1986.
Earlier this January, Museveni won a seventh term in an election marred by “widespread repression and intimidation against the political opposition, human rights defenders, [and] journalists,” according to the UN.
Army chief threatens to kill opposition leaders; brags about abduction and torture
Soon after Museveni was declared the winner, his son unleashed the military on the opposition. “So far we have killed 30” and arrested 2,000 members of the main opposition party, the National Unity Platform (NUP), Kainerugaba had announced on X only days later. When its leader, Bobi Wine, Museveni’s main opponent, was forced underground and eventually into exile, Kainerugaba told his troops to “bring him in dead or alive!”
Kainerugaba had also bragged last year about abducting Wine’s bodyguard and torturing him in his basement, adding that it was only “an appetizer.”
Last month on June 15, soldiers barged into the home of former mayor of Kampala and lawyer, Erias Lukwago, beat his wife, and arrested him. This attack came just as he was set to serve court papers on Kainerugaba for threatening on social media to kill his client, People’s Front for Freedom party’s leader, Kizza Besigye, who is in a high security prison, facing treason charges.
Posting pictures of Lukwago under detention, including one in which he was blindfolded and pleading, Kainerugaba posted, “I am proud of ALL the hurt and pain I will inflict” on Lukwago.
NMG targeted after reporting on military crackdown on opposition
Documenting his public threats and open admission of torture against opposition leaders, in violation of domestic and international laws, NTV Uganda broadcasted a feature on June 17, asking in its title if Kainerugaba had become the country’s “untouchable law breaker.” The Daily Monitor has also consistently reported on his abuses.
Raiding their premises, cutting off its electricity, and forcing them off air and print, Kainerugaba then turned on the managing director of Nation Media Group – Uganda (NMG – U), Susan Nsibirwa.
“I hear there is a small girl called ‘Sue’….! We are looking for her. We will discipline her. She cannot cause chaos in our country,” he said on X, adding in another post, “All police patrols are instructed to arrest her on sight!”
He later reversed the order, explaining that Alan Kasujja, executive director of the official communications command center of the government, “has asked me to leave Sue to him… All police patrols are instructed to wait for my future instructions!” Fearing her safety, Nsibirwa has gone underground.
Armed and masked troops continue to surround the NMG-U’s headquarters and its broadcasting centers, enforcing a perimeter to cut off access to the staff.
“An unprecedented escalation in the repression of the media”
“Laying siege to the Nation Media Group in Uganda, the largest media house in east and central Africa, at the whim of military chief Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba offers yet another indication of the country’s deepening authoritarianism,” said the CPJ’s Africa director, Angela Quintal.
“A dangerous line has just been crossed in Uganda,” added Jeanne Lagarde, Sub-Saharan Africa advocacy manager of Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “The head of the army’s decision to publicly order the closure of the country’s leading independent media group, deploy soldiers outside its newsrooms and make its reopening contingent upon his personal approval constitutes an unprecedented escalation in the repression of the media.”
Calling on the East African Community, the African Union, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to speak out against this crackdown, the Kenya Editors Guild (KEG) also expressed solidarity with the journalists and other staff of the NMG-U.
The NMG conglomerate is based in Kenya. Its newspapers, TV channels, and online news portals in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda have an audience that makes it the largest, non-state media group in the region.
Nevertheless, its Ugandan operations, in particular the NTV and the Daily Monitor, “will not re-open without my permission,” Kainerugaba insisted. Now the terms and conditions for his “permission” are being laid out before the conglomerate.
“I have just held discussions with Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba,” announced Andrew Mwenda, a senior and internationally well known journalist, who had previously been the political editor of the Daily Monitor.
He is also the second-in-command of Kainerugaba’s Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), which functions as a “very powerful and dynamic youth wing” of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
“We, as leaders of PLU, have agreed that we shall reopen both Daily Monitor and NTV soon. However, we shall first have discussions with the management of both sister companies. I will inform them when we can have this meeting,” Mwenda added in his X post.
Less than half hour late, Kainerugaba added in another post tagging Mwenda, “we are having discussions with our allies in the UK and Europe about re-opening both NTV and Daily Monitor.”
Owners capitulate?
The meeting to negotiate the re-opening was held Wednesday, July 1, at Special Forces Command headquarters in Entebbe. In attendance was business tycoon, Rostam Aziz, who owns the NMG.
Distinguished as Tanzania’s first dollar billionaire in 2013, and the only dollar billionaire in East Africa until 2022, Aziz – who has investments in mining, ports, telecom, LPG etc – bought the NMG conglomerate earlier this year.
Accompanied by his son, Saam Aziz, and Georgia Mutagaywa, the chief of staff of his company, Taarifa Limited, Rostam Aziz met Kainerugaba, shook hands, and smiled for the cameras.
“During the deliberations, specific instances of what the government deems biased and malicious reporting were reviewed, with the NMG ownership committing to adopting a more patriotic, balanced, and objective approach to their journalism moving forward,” Kampala Post reported.
Pavan Kulkarni , July 7, 2026
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