By Robert Kigongo
Op_Ed
During the one month (28th June to 28th July 2026) forced closure of National Media Group in Uganda, I remembered a story that was aired by NTV one the owned televising broadcaster.
The story about a family that was illegally evicted from its rightful owned ancestral land that was maliciously grabbed by a top public servant, but when NTV gave the aggrieved widow a platform to share her land ordeal during ‘Akawungezi’ evening news, the broadcasted story reached the concerned lands minister who intervened by advising the judiciary to reinstate land rights to the legitimate owners.
This is just one of the very many stories that the bold free media air while executing its core mandate of driving public discourse and dispensing reliable information but in so doing it also anchors justice to the underprivileged.
Moral lesson here is, broadcasters and publications aligned to independent media across the World are a voice of the most marginalised individuals and vulnerable groups that have no audience, resources and means to fight for their human dignity, constitutional and fundamental rights and freedoms.
This is the beauty about Independent media, given freedom, it can even hold the most powerful to account, thereby delivering fairness, justice, equity and equality in society.
Unfortunately across the world the free, bold and independent media that gives a voice to thousands of marginalised communities and voiceless individuals is increasingly under attack.
However, regardless of NMG’s resumption of operations, the fact is, at its discretion it will relax on holding power to account as it before forced closure.
The unfortunate action of tempting to silence one of the boldest independent media in East Africa is an act of suppressing independent media and press freedoms.
During this past NMG ordeal, loud thoughts about the untamed continuous siege of press freedoms and suppression of Independent media in many parts of the world popped in my mind.
The most frequent thoughts baffling me till now are (I) when the voice of the voiceless is silenced? (I) who are the losers? And (II) what happens after the voice of the voiceless is silenced?
I was quickly reminded by a famous quote from United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez during the World Press Freedom Day 2026.
The United Nations Chief stated “When journalists are silenced, we all lose our voice” indeed the successful attempt to silence independent publications and broadcasters has far reaching consequences to daily businesses, governance, civic space, democracy, and ordinary citizens.
It’s normally the courageous non-state journalists who report on electoral mal practices, investigate environmental degradation, scrutinize business operations, expose corruption scandals, document atrocities and photograph human rights violations.
Unfortunately, courageous journalism has become very unsafe, dangerous and extreme an insecure profession.
Case in point, a number of professional journalists and citizen journalists have been brutally beaten and tear gassed on frontline, abducted from offices, physically surveilled and cyber stalked, compromised or dismissed from duty while others their work stations have been closed but the worst of all is being silenced and killed.
According to United Nations human rights agency report 2025 on press freedoms “About 500 citizen journalists are behind bars, 300 journalists and media workers are still detained while 300 journalists have been killed since October 2023”.
Yet again ,the Press Council of South Africa reported that “80 percent of journalists in Africa are facing worsening media conditions due to political interference and struggling newsrooms , while it also stated that in 180 countries close to 112 are witnessing a decline in press freedom as of year 2025”.
In many African states, independent media has become very unsafe and a grave risk for journalists who are speaking truth to power and lawful acting as a voice of the voiceless.
I pose my question again, when the voice of voiceless is silenced! Who is at loss?
In my view point, everyone loses from government institutions, civil societies to businesses but to more specific it’s the citizens who lose most.
Without independent media citizens are denied a voice, access to information when uncensored truth is negotiated and facts are traded off like a commodity.
When independent media is silenced through control and censoring, the truth fails to reach citizens thereby paving way for inequalities, injustices and authoritarianism.
Without independent media, violence becomes untamed and injustices escalate in absence of the guardian of justice and an equal world for all.
Without an independent media, society is not able to differentiate between facts from fiction especially in this age of social media and artificial intelligence where uncensored misinformation and disinformation is spreading like wildfire.
Without independent media, democracy becomes an illusion, certainly because silencing courageous journalism limits citizens participation and freedom of expression while electoral mal practices easily continue unabated thus crippling the most critical tenets of democracy.
Independent media offers a platform for political talk shows, public dialogues and constructive debates that nurture democracy, social cohesion, co-existence and tolerance and therefore am very worried that silencing independent media is a disservice to national unity, peace and security.
Governments can also lose out on constructive criticism and open accountability by the independent media that enables institutions to improve on service delivery.
For instance, when independent media uncovers truth about failed healthcare and infrastructures or provides civic space for diverse perspectives or makes an alarm on business evading taxes, it enables the government authorities to intervene for investigations and strengthens the prevention mechanisms.
The Non-government organisations equally need an independent media, because it fosters strong civic spaces and environment upon which all civil societies thrive to extend social development services and advocacy work.
The business community also benefits from the independent media when it scrutinizes tax and tariff burdens or when media also provides a big platform for business advertisements.
Therefore, I can now state with full authority that ‘when independent media is silenced the entire nation loses out.
Government officials and Uniformed men must understand that duty of independent media is to promote transparency, accountability, inclusivity and democratic governance or else any further plans to silence free media undermines the Windhoek Declaration of 1991.
Independent media is the oxygen of a free and an open society for all, and therefore the idea of silencing it is not be the answer.
Wherefore, it’s now incumbent upon everybody alive today to stand up for a free and an independent media by protecting it in our different capacities at all costs.
Robert Kigongo is an activist of press freedoms and sustainable development analyst.
