What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

During the high-octane 2020 campaigns ahead of the January 14, 2021 poll, the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) provided a grant worth Shs1 billion to New Vision Publications Limited to undertake investigative journalism stories that require a deeper inquiry to unearth wrongdoing.

A climate of suspicion and fear had already engulfed the partly government-owned legacy media house when the funding was dispatched.

Mr Robert Kabushenga, whose termination as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) had earlier been reversed by the Chief of Defence, Gen Kainerugaba Muhoozi in 2018, was already a marked man. His fate was sealed when a grossly embellished intelligence dossier claimed that he had accepted funds from the basket fund supported by eight European Union (EU) countries meant to ostensibly sway the election of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party’s Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, alias Bobi Wine—a youthful candidate whose red beret revolution swept out the ruling party across its central region stronghold.

Barely a month after the election results were announced, Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, who was acting on the orders of the President, on February 17, 2021, ordered the suspension of the DGF facility. The President accused DGF of harbouring an imperialistic agenda by financing “activities and organisations designed to subvert government under the guise of improving governance.”

After two years of suspension, on June 22, 2022, the President agreed to lift the ban on the condition that the Government of Uganda (GoU) was represented in the DGF’s decision-making structures. The donors, however, declined the offer, and, in October, the Fund was closed.

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