Celebrated political journalist turns politician Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda has accused the current media practitioners of fronting their personal and media houses interests as the journalism industry in the country is being gagged and sent into silence by powerful government officials and mafias in different circles especially in business
Ssemujju narrated that in early 2000s when he was still practicing with the daily monitor, police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) summoned his paper editor Charles Onyango Obbo and writer Siraje Lubwama over a security story authored in one of their dailies
“The next morning all media practitioners were on Kampala streets with placards protesting police’s decision of summoning journalists, imagine just summoning but now you hear journalists being arrested on stupid issues because of writing a story about a top government official who is a public servant, charged and remanded to prison and fellow journalist keep on running their business like nothing has happened without knowing that they are the next to face the said powerful person,” Ssemujju said
He further blasted the current media practitioners of majestically entering parliament well knowing that their comrades practising with the Nation media have been banned from covering parliament because of writing a story which annoyed the top leadership of parliament.
More Read
Ssemujju warned these media houses and journalist that they should not think that they are immune to being tormented by the same people.
Ssemujju added that when he was still covering parliament, his photographer took a photo from the parliament canteen when legislator James Kakooza had removed his shoes and his necktie sleeping and snoring on the table, and when the photo was published in the daily monitor, monitor journalists were banned from covering parliament.
Because of the solidary journalists had by then, all media practitioners covering parliament stopped covering parliament and were deployed to other fields until parliament leadership engaged news room managers and resolved their disagreements and monitor was allowed to cover parliament again.
“I remember during that period the former deputy speaker of parliament Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga secretly introduced her boyfriend to her parents in Mbulamuti in Busoga, we got the photos and published them and she was shocked wondering how we got the photos. The only option she had was to talk to us after realising that the ban was not helping,” Ssemujju said.
He added that another time they were banned from using parliament’s main gate and forced to use the small gate which they protested by banning covering parliament again as journalists. They were allowed to use the main gate again to stop the protest.
Peter Kibazo a seasoned a political editor said that the reason why they were banned from using the main gate of the parliament was because monitor journalists were getting access to parliament canteen and taking pictures of legislators doing unhonourable things.
What saved journalists who used to cover such exclusive news at parliament was the solidarity they had and they always put-up a spirited fight for the good of the profession.
Ssemujju insisted that if it was not President Museveni’s order of banning nation media from covering him, Anita Annet Among the speaker of parliament wouldn’t have also banned the media house and she is doing it to impresses Museveni and show him that she is also tired of the media house.
“I was told that one day in cabinet meeting, Museveni said that he was going to close monitor and one of the ministers jumped celebrating and supplementing that the president should also stop me from mentioning his name because, I’m always undermining him,” Ssemujju said.
He divulged that because of Museveni’s orders of not giving government adverts to private media houses, it is the reason why Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama in the ongoing general elections, only gives adverts to government media houses that’s Bukedde and New Vision leaving behind other print media houses like Ono Bwino and the observer.
He claims that the agenda behind the move is to kill independent media in the country and remain with only government media houses as it is in Rwanda.
ONO BWINO ATTACKED LAST YEAR
It should be remembered that Ono Bwino Publications was raided by security last year and the company Managing Director and his senior journalist were arrested, their laptops and phones confiscated and they slept in Luzira Murchison Bay prison for three weeks.
Their crime was exposing corruption in Parliament. When they left prison, Ono Bwino sister brand thegrapevine online was mysteriously attacked by cyber attackers who tried to erase all content on the website.
In 2023, Businessman Ham Kigundu sent security personnel and they raided Ono Bwino offices and arrested its Managing Director.
Our crime was exposing the dubious dealings of the businessman during his fight with Diamond Trust Bank over a loan he did not want to pay.
HANDOUTS ARE KILLING JOURNALISM IN UGANDA – LAWYER MABIRIZI
Legal activitist Male Mabirizi noted that it is going to be very difficult for journalists to fight for their rights because of the handouts they receivie from people with power which makes them to think that they have reached the promised land.
“I was told that many of those journalists covering parliament are on a payroll, that’s why they are working on the orders of the parliament leadership. One of them told me that they were stopped from interviewing any person who is not a member of parliament at the parliament premises, imagine to interview him, we had to walk to the National theatre,” Mabirizi said.
Another journalist who was recently imprisoned on alleged orders of the parliament leadership because of writing a story exposing corruption in parliament revealed that when he was released, a colleague deployed at parliament made a phone call to him apologising to him because of not standing with him saying that he was scared of parliament leadership seeing him visiting a colleague in prison and standing with him in his troubles.
Mabirizi added that it is not only journalists covering parliament who have been gagged, court reporters also are working under the close scrutiny of judicial officers who guide them on which story to write and which angle to take.
“The good thing we have social media platforms where lawyers and other people who are aggrieved with those people in power and control can be exposed from. Media in Uganda is dying because of the greedy practitioners,” Mabirizi said.
UJA SPEAKS OUT
Emmanuel Kirunda the Secretary General of the Uganda Journalists Association (UJA) has warned that the problem the journalism profession currently has are the intruders who want to use media as a front to run their Non-Governmental Organization.
Kirunda says this has also affected the current media solidarity because these people are only looking for money instead of thinking about the future of the professional.
“As UJA, we try, but as we mobilize journalists to fight for their rights, those NGOs are preparing engagements like playing football with the tormentors and because our journalists are poorly paid by their bosses, when these people promise them money, they think that they wish them well yet they are killing our professional,” Kirunda said
Richard Baguma, a veteran journalist warned that nothing is going to stop Uganda from heading to a dangerous stage where media freedom is suppressed by the State as it was done to Civil Societies organisations.
