By Tom Oniro Elenyu
When President Yoweri Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s formerly powerful secretary-general, “super minister” and subsequent prime minister, Amama Mbabazi, decided to contest the imperial presidency in the 2016 general elections, he memorably said: “He likes to take all the credit and then blame others for whatever goes wrong.”
And credit indeed now goes to Museveni for disowning and jumping highest out of his cabinet-approved and NRM-endorsed, but controversial Protection of Sovereignty Bill, 2026. The rushed Bill was tabled on the Floor of Parliament on 15 April. It was then hurriedly read for the second time even before consultations and public participation folders could be dusted on 24 April.
“[The] Sovereignty Bill is another tool of repression,” constitutional lawyer and human rights defender, Dr Sarah Bireete, who heads Kampala-based East and Horn of Africa’s constitutional watchdog—Center for Constitutional Governance—said on X Space, 30 April, adding; “Executive abuse of excesses of the regime as if we don’t have enough draconian laws.”
Presented as a safeguard against foreign interference, the Bill is criticised as an over-reach that undermines constitutional protections, concentrates power and risks authoritarianism, while failing to address genuine legal gaps. It redefines citizenship to exclude the diaspora, effectively stripping millions of their rights and contradicting existing laws.
The Bill grants the Minister of the Interior unchecked authority to create criminal offences and amend penalties without parliamentary oversight; thereby undermining constitutional checks. In its raw form, the Bill authorises warrantless inspections of private premises, including homes and religious institutions, infringing on privacy rights. And above all, the Bill criminalises foreign funding and joint ventures, labelling them as foreign agent activities, which could stifle business, innovation, and cultural expression.
Moreover, most Ugandan families depend on diaspora remittances for school fees, family support and livelihoods, among other socio-economic developments. “Citizens demand the immediate withdrawal of the Bill,” a joint citizen statement reads, “urging Parliament to reject legislation that criminalises remittances and civil liberties.” They call on the media to inform the public, diaspora to advocate internationally, private sector to oppose the Bill’s economic risks and development partners to reassess aid.
“Citizens are encouraged to organise locally to protect constitutional rights and national stability. The Bill aims to dismantle constitutional safeguards, centralise power, and threaten Uganda’s democratic fabric. Despite claims of protecting sovereignty, it relies on foreign aid and diaspora support, which it seeks to criminalise.” According to the document, Uganda’s sovereignty belongs to its people, not unchecked state agencies and calls for collective rejection of the Bill to preserve democracy and stability.
In a 30 April letter skipping the citizen-constipating Bill, Museveni’s denial starts: “Of recent, I have noticed a lot of noise, regarding the Sovereignty Bill. Which Sovereignty Bill is the noise about? The one I initiated in the Cabinet or another one? The Bill will stop FDIs (Foreign Direct Investments), support for religious bodies from abroad, Remittances from Ugandans working abroad, etc, etc. Really!! That is not the Bill I initiated.”
While disowning the unpopular Bill, Museveni said the one he initiated is rooted in Pan-Africanism and the continent’s long-standing struggle for self-determination; not a move to block foreign investment, remittances or external financial support. “The Bill I initiated was about what we fought for and what the whole of Africa fought for ever since 1900 when the whole of Africa,” Museveni somersaulted on the piece of legislation, “except for Ethiopia, had been shamefully colonised after 400 years of slave trade because of our egocentric Kings that were spending more energy causing wars among us than uniting us to defend ourselves.” Liberia and Ethiopia are the only African countries known to have survived being colonised. Ethiopia resisted Italian colonial endeavours in the bloody battle of Adwa in 1896.
According to Museveni, starting with the Afro-American Pan-Africanists such as Marcus Garvey and the ANC [South Africa’s anti-apartheid and current ruling party, African National Congress] founded in 1912, the African Resistance, assisted by some other factors such as the support of the Socialist countries of the USSR [Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics; now Russia] and China, finally defeated the colonial invasion with the freedom of South Africa in 1994. “A whole century spent on that effort for survival as a free people. It is that Sovereignty that we were fighting for. Sovereignty in what? In policy decision-making…”
The most probable straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back came from nowhere other than the central Bank of Uganda (BoU). Appearing before the Joint Parliamentary Committee scrutinising the Bill, BoU Governor, Michael Atingi-Ego declared that “a country without reserves is not sovereign”.
“The potential of this Bill to destabilise Uganda’s balance of payments is our primary concern as a central bank,” said Atingi-Ego in his institutional view on 28 April; “For example, last financial year, the overall balance of payment surplus was US$1.5 billion. That’s how we were able to increase our reserve coverage by US$1.5 billion. Today, as we speak, our reserves are close to US$ 6 billion. Why? Because these inflows have been coming in. The moment you tamper with these inflows here, we risk running down our reserves, and that is economic disaster for a country.”
No wonder, Museveni, in his letter says Uganda runs a free economy where forex is bought and sold in privately-run Forex Bureaus. “This is the strength of the Ugandan economy…Therefore, the NRM cannot countenance the interference with the freedom of movement of capital and money into or out of Uganda because that is our insurance against the corrupt public servants and politicians and our main instrument for growth and socio-economic transformation. Uganda has thrived in spite of those traitors because of that policy.”
In its submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee scrutinising the Bill, through the Clerk to Parliament, the World Bank Group said the Protection of Sovereignty Bill “criminalises core World Bank Group (WBG) activities in Uganda”.
“The WBG recognises the sovereign right of the Republic of Uganda to enact legislation in furtherance of its national interests, including to regulate the conduct of foreign actors within its territory.
“These comments are submitted in a spirit of partnership and constructive engagement with a focus on seeking clarification regarding the Bill’s scope of application as it relates to the WBG’s legal status and its ability to operate in Uganda. Specifically,” the Bretton Woods Institution said, “we would like to draw to the attention of the Committee that the Bill could materially affect how the World Bank Group, and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) operate in Uganda.”
In a supreme twist of irony, however; as the Bill was being tabled in Parliament, Uganda’s junior finance minister and his top technocrats were in Washington, District of Columbia; begging for foreign financial inflows from the World Bank’s sister lender—the IMF—during the Spring Meetings. Over 50% of Uganda’s budget is funded by foreigners through loans and grants.
Academicians, too, weighed in with their pinching concerns on the Bill. “Attached, please find the memorandum of Makerere University Academic Staff Association (MUASA), in which we explain that the Protection of Sovereignty Bill, 2026 would criminalise study abroad, collaborative research, exercise of academic freedom, publication and discourse by academic staff as part of Uganda’s intelligentsia.”
In their submission serving the Joint Committee via the Clerk to Parliament, MUASA says if passed into law, the Bill would also stifle funding for research and training; “a disastrous outcome for a university sector for which government and local private sector funding is very low.
“We contend that all these possible outcomes are not only unconstitutional. They would also make the work of academic staff universities criminal and, consequently, impossible…Therefore,” the MUASA Chairperson, Jude Ssempebwa (PhD)-signed submission recommends, “we urge Parliament to abandon the Bill in its entirety. In the alternative, we urge Parliament to explicitly exempt University staff and students from the scope of the Bill’s application.”
Separately though, Dr Apollo Buregyeya, writing on X, clarified that MUASA is not fighting sovereignty. “MUASA is raising concern about how the Bill may affect the work of universities. Universities help build sovereignty by producing knowledge, training professionals, and finding solutions to national problems. If a law makes normal academic work risky, such as research, teaching, collaboration, or public discussion,” Buregyeya reasoned on 24 April, “it can weaken that role. Our concern is to protect the country and the institutions that help it think, solve problems, and grow.”
In yet another sensitive pushback, the Uganda Medical Association (UMA) tasked Parliament not to use the Bill, “as a political instrument”, arguing that passing the piece of legislation in its current format without robust safeguards for the health sector will harm patients, weaken the health system, disrupt essential services and isolate Uganda from global scientific and medical advancement.
UMA President Dr Frank Asiimwe, told the Joint Committee that “any nation’s sovereignty is as strong as its healthcare system, whose future is being threatened by proposals in the Bill”.
Similarly, in their formal petition to the Attorney-General, the Uganda Bankers’ Association (UBA) red-flagged the Protection of Sovereignty Bill; warning that its provisions could significantly disrupt the country’s financial sector and investment climate in general. UBA Executive Director Wilbrod Owor warned that the Bill deters foreign investment, disrupts credit growth, and undermines financial stability through foreign funding limits. The Bill, in its raw format, casts a ceiling of about US$106,000 receivable per year. Any more amount from abroad dictates that the recipient reports to the minister in-charge of the interior seeking permission to withdraw the money, or else the recipient risks being fined about US$1.1 million for organisations and over US$556,000 for individuals or 20 years’ imprisonment.
Interestingly, however, the executive over-reach and over-reaction scratches the ruling establishment as well. “I addressed my concern; I was not happy with the way the Bill was drafted…But now I am happy it is going to be clarified and implemented,” Museveni’s almost ‘permanent’ Senior Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs, Moses Byaruhanga, said on Kampala-stationed Capital Radio’s premium political accountability talk show, The Capital Gang on 2 May.
And, in the minds of the NRM’s former Women’s League head and Central Executive Committee member; now ruling party MP-elect, on the talk show, Lydia Wanyoto-Mutende, said; “We are a country with firm written foreign policy…What disease does the Sovereignty Bill cure? Because for you to come up with such a Bill, there must be a disease; a malaria somewhere.”
According to a one David Soita Masinde, the Executive is no longer willing to protect Parliament from the consequences of bad law-making, “and it will embarrass them alone”.
“Seeing the ‘Big Heads’ struggle to explain a Bill that even their own agencies hate isn’t just ‘ugly’; it’s the most honest legislative session Uganda has had in a decade. The mask is off. The facilitators are quiet. And for once, the MPs are as confused as the people they represent,” Masinde tweets.
He claims Ugandan MPs have spent years ignoring the public and now they are being ignored by the executive; caught in the middle of a Bill that no one claims and everyone hates. “There is a well-deserved, poetic justice in watching Ugandan MPs ‘bang their big heads’ against the Sovereignty Bill… For years, the Executive and Parliament operated a smooth, high-speed pipeline for controversial laws…the formula was simple: Skip the public, ignore the experts, ‘facilitate’ the MPs, and pass the law before anyone could read it.
“But the Sovereignty Bill has broken the machine…They didn’t talk to the Bank of Uganda. They didn’t talk to the FIA [Financial Intelligence Authority]. They didn’t talk to the Universities. They simply dropped a ‘confusing’ piece of legislation on the floor [of Parliament] and walked away. When the Executive stops ‘greasing the wheels’ with pre-consultation, the friction becomes visible.”
Masinde celebrates for the first time, “we see state agencies like the FIA and BOU openly opposing the government. This ‘confusion’ is actually a rare moment of transparency.”
The myth of the monolithic, all-knowing State is dead and historically, says Masinde, MPs ignored the ‘aspirations of the people’ because the Executive gave them a safety net. “That net is gone. The Executive has effectively thrown the MPs under the bus, forcing them to face angry stakeholders like Makerere and the banks.”
As this article went to bed, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs together with their Legal counterpart retreated to regurgitate the constipation in the Bill following Museveni’s clarification as Ugandans hysterically await the outcome.
