Sitting-in for veteran controversial celebrated journalist Andrew Mwenda on Friday’s weekly media roundtable talk show on KFM radio, Maverick veteran journalist Timothy Kalyegira announced that the leadership of the Nation Media Group had took a decision to end the show in November 2025
The show was the only remaining famous Andrew Mwenda Live talk show which was changed to KFM Hot Seat after the pioneer presenter Andrew Mwenda resigned from Monitor Publication Limited also under the Nation Media Group in 2007 citing betrayal.
Quoting departed South African president, Nelson Mandela, Mwenda wrote in his resignation letter, “As for me, I can never betray the cause of liberty. Liberty is an ideal for which I am willing to live for, work for to see strengthened and if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
He then started his in-depth and analytical weekly magazine the Independent which was selling the entire East African region.
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It is currently running online but he returned back to KFM radio to resurrect his dream of using the talk show to awaken intellectual debate in the country.
Before becoming an international lobbyist and President Museveni’s government loyalist, Mwenda was for decades the target of threats, arrests, and criminal prosecutions for his radio, television, and newspaper work.
Because of the frequent business travels, meetings on how to strengthen Museveni’s government and achieve his personal interests, Mwenda has been irregularly hosting his talk show and most times he has been assigning other panellists on the show like political journalist Derrick Wandera, Kalyegira and Raymond Mujuni to host it.
The show has been the leading media roundtable talk show and has been compared to Kenya’s Citizen Television’s News Gang because of its panellists who are veteran celebrated journalists like Dismas Nkunda, Obed Katurebe the Acting Executive Director of the Uganda Media Centre and Kwezi Tabaro.
By the time the show closed, the main panelists have been missing in action leaving the show to junior reporters, political and civil activists.
In his closing remarks concerning the decision to end the talk show, he advise mainstream media managers and practitioners to think outside the box on how to compete with the social media platforms explaining that investigations, analyses are the way to go not breaking news.
The development comes at a time when Nation Media Group is facing a huge hostility from President Museveni’s government to the extent that the President himself ordered his security team to bar NMG journalists from attending his gatherings.
After the President’s ban, Speaker of Parliament Annet Anita Among also banned NMG journalists from covering parliament after accusing them of biased coverage.
