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.