Uganda's leading independent media group said on the event date, 2026-06-28, that its offices in Kampala were under military siege after army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba ordered the shutdown of its newspapers, television station and radio outlets.
The dispute centered on Nation Media Group, whose Ugandan brands include the Daily Monitor, NTV Uganda, Spark TV, KFM, Dembe FM and The East African. According to the report, armed soldiers were stationed outside the company’s offices in the capital after Kainerugaba announced that NTV Uganda and the Daily Monitor would be shut down immediately.
Kainerugaba, who is also the son of President Yoweri Museveni, framed the move in explicitly political terms. He said on X that he did not believe in a free press in Uganda and argued that the press should be guided by "cadres of the revolution." He also said the outlets would not reopen without his permission and declared that all media in Uganda would henceforth follow his rules.
The development was reported by the Daily Star quoting AFP, which said the company described the situation as a military siege. The same report said the shutdown order extended beyond the two best-known brands to the wider Nation Media Group media footprint in Uganda. That broader reach is important because it suggests pressure on a whole media network rather than a dispute over a single station or newspaper.
The incident sharpened long-running concerns about media freedom in Uganda because it directly involved the military surrounding the offices of an independent media company and a public order from the army chief himself. The report does not provide further detail on whether the outlets were able to continue broadcasting or publishing later that day, and no additional official explanation was included in the supplied evidence.
What is clear from the evidence is the sequence of events: a public shutdown order, soldiers outside the media offices, and a statement from the company that it was under siege. The confrontation also underscored the political weight of Kainerugaba’s role. By linking the shutdown to his own approval, he signaled that the outlets’ future depended not on a regulatory process but on his personal consent.
The affected outlets serve different audiences and formats, from television and radio to print and regional coverage. Their simultaneous disruption suggested a broad intervention rather than a single-channel dispute. For readers tracking Uganda’s media environment, the event date marked an unusually direct confrontation between state-aligned force and one of the country’s best-known independent media groups. Taken together, the evidence points to a coordinated action affecting multiple brands under one media house, with soldiers present and no immediate sign of a routine administrative process.
