Uganda’s First Oil is here, rigs are in position and pipelines are taking shape. Contracts worth billions have been signed. And yet, the most powerful force that will determine whether this milestone transforms lives or simply makes headlines is not a drill bit. It is a story.
In two decades of working at the intersection of energy and communications, I have watched technically brilliant projects collapse under the weight of public mistrust, and I have watched imperfect ones survive because someone told their story well. As we gather under the theme First Oil: Fulfilling the Promise, Forging the Future, I want to make a case that media is not the backdrop to Uganda’s oil journey. Media is the road.
I have come to describe the media’s role in this sector through a framework I call N.I.C.E( Narrative, Image, Controversy, and Evidence of Work).
Each dimension represents a lane in which the media can either drive Uganda’s oil promise forward or stall it entirely. Let me break it down for you.
Narrative(N)
Every transformative moment in Uganda’s oil story the Final Investment Decision of 2022, the launch of drilling at Kingfisher, the groundbreaking of EACOP reached ordinary Ugandans through the media first. A citizen in Hoima, a student in Gulu, a mother in Soroti will never stand on a rig. But through a well-reported story, they can understand what is being built in their name. The media’s power to narrate this journey with accuracy, context, and national pride is the difference between a sector that Uganda owns emotionally and one it merely tolerates politically. When journalists frame First Oil as Uganda’s achievement, and not just TotalEnergies’ transaction, they build the national consensus that sustains this industry through every political headwind.
Image(I)
Perception is policy. The image that media projects of Uganda’s extractive sector directly influences investor confidence, regional partnerships, and domestic political will. When international outlets ran apocalyptic environmental headlines about EACOP, written largely from foreign capitals without ground-truthing, they did not just damage a pipeline project. They complicated loan negotiations, strained diplomatic relationships, and put Ugandan jobs at risk. Responsible local media, armed with facts and proximity, is the most credible corrective tool we have. Building Uganda’s image as a capable, transparent, and locally-empowered oil producer is a media function as much as it is a government one.
Controversy(C)
Here is the truth that the sector must sit with; Uganda’s oil journey has suffered more from communication failures than geological ones. The narrative gaps have been filled with speculation about contract irregularities, environmental destruction, and elite capture not always because the allegations were proven, but because authoritative voices were absent or late. Media thrives on conflict, and where the industry does not proactively engage, controversy writes its own script. The answer is not to silence scrutiny. A sector with nothing to hide should welcome a curious press. The answer is to engage early, consistently, and with evidence. Controversy managed well becomes accountability. Accountability, over time, becomes trust.
Evidence of Work(E)
This is perhaps the media’s most underdeveloped role in our sector. Over $2.1 billion in contracts have been awarded to Ugandan companies. More than 7,000 nationals have been trained in petroleum-related fields. Eighty thousand jobs direct and indirect have been supported. These are not press release statistics. They are the lived realities of families and businesses across this country. Yet they remain largely invisible to the public because evidence without storytelling is simply data. The media’s job is to translate numbers into names, and policy into people. When a Ugandan engineer on the EACOP project is profiled in a Sunday newspaper, that is not a feel-good story. That is nation-building.
UCEM convened the 11th Annual Oil and Gas Convention, we did so knowing that First Oil will arrive, the wells were drilled, the targets are met, the infrastructure is in place. What we cannot afford to leave to chance is the story that surrounds it. Uganda needs a media ecosystem that is technically literate, nationally invested, and editorially courageous enough to hold the sector to account while celebrating what it is genuinely getting right.
The promise of First Oil has been fulfilled in the field. But it will be forged in the minds and hearts of Ugandans in the newsroom.
