(The leadership of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party has criticized the proposed Protection of Sovereignty Bill 2026, saying that it aims to cripple the party’s activities, civil societies, and non-government organizations that receive funding from abroad.
According to Benjamin Katana, the party’s National Treasurer, the Protection of Sovereignty Bill 2026 is beautifully named, but it has evil intentions of crippling NUP after its diaspora members successfully funded the recent elections.
“Having ensured that NUP didn’t get support from the National Consolidated Fund, they went back to the drawing board to come up with the evil scheme in the name of the Protection of Sovereignty Bill. We want to call upon the people of Uganda to take interest in this bill and deny it,” Katana said.
While addressing the presser on Thursday, April 16th, 2026, at the NUP party headquarters in Makerere Kavule, Katana called upon Members of Parliament (MPs), religious leaders, and members of civil societies to petition the government and international organizations to halt the proposed bill, which he said was intended to make Uganda a military state.
“We call upon everyone on the platform, people in churches, to explain this law and its implications for the ordinary citizen to stop this mechanism that is intended to further make Uganda a police state, where the regime can control what you think, what you do, what you want, what you eat, and what you wear. It has no good intentions at all,” he noted.
According to David Lewis Rubongoya, the party Secretary General, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) is determined to approve the bill, stating that it’s the reason why President Museveni gifted party legislators with UGX 100 million each after the leaders’ retreat at Kyankwanzi.
Additionally, the interim party president, Lina Zedriga, called upon Ugandans to reject the proposed Protection of Sovereignty bill because it aims to violate the rights of Ugandans, encouraging party members to keep hope alive and struggle for the new Uganda.
Jolly Jackline, the Deputy Party President in charge of Western Uganda, was concerned with how the Ugandan law is being applied selectively, questioning the security for declining to arrest the NRM MPs who were seen donning military attire during the retreat in Kyankwanzi.
The proposed bill has since faced resistance from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), describing the legislation as “a dangerous legislative overreach that threatens constitutional rights and risks moving the country toward authoritarianism.”
However, President Museveni has positioned the Protection of Sovereignty Bill, 2026, as a critical measure for safeguarding Uganda’s national interests and institutional independence.
