Tanzania tycoon plans to ‘shake up’ top African media conglomerate

One of Tanzania’s richest men said he planned to “shake up” the east African media landscape after his acquisition of one of the continent’s largest and oldest press conglomerates, a move that has alarmed journalists across the region. Rostam Azizi’s Taarifa Group this week agreed to buy a 54 per cent stake in Nation Media Group, which owns leading titles in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and is a celebrated bastion of press freedom, from the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED). A fifth-generation Tanzanian with family origins in Iran, Azizi said he had a long friendship born of a past joint venture in media with Karim, the late Aga Khan. Azizi said the Nation group under Karim (Aga Khan IV), who died just over a year ago, had “stood firm” in the face of pressure from all manner of governments and insisted that he would “do the same”. A spokesperson for [AKFED], explained, “The sale was not politically driven…NMG was simply no longer an asset that was aligned with the wider business strategy moving forwards,” he said.