Nape: Why I took no action against man wielding gun

Dar es Salaam. Mtama Constituency Member of Parliament Nape Nnauye has disclosed why he did not seek punitive measures against the ‘unknown’ man who accosted him with a gun and blocked him from addressing a press conference in Dar es Salaam in 2017.

Mr Nnauye who had just lost his position as the minister of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports when President Magufuli added his name to the long list of public officials whom he fired, had booked a venue at Protea hotel from where he would address the media.

It has remained unclear on whose orders the ‘unknown cop’ had blocked the former minister from addressing his first media conference after being fired.

The incident was witnessed and recorded, and later posted online, by some of the many journalists who were at the venue. The situation was diffused by intervention by people on the scene.

However, Mr Nnauye was yesterday quoted during a live interview at a local television station saying that even after knowing the people who had planned to block him from speaking to the media, including the man who pulled out the gun, he decided to forgive them for the sake of the government’s reputation.

“The best decision that I took was to forgive the entire group because I knew them well and those who supervised the implementation of the entire incident. Other actions would have escalated the issue further,” he said.

He said that he did not report the incident to the police because it occurred in front of law enforcers including the Regional Police Commander (RPC).

“It could not have made any sense to report it. Where would I have reported it and yet all the security forces, both in uniform and plainclothes, were witnessing the incident,” he questioned.

On why he wanted to address the public, he said: “It was my constitutional right to speak to my people on what happened and give them the way forward.

“If anyone wanted to stop me, they should have used proper procedures. Ninety (99 per cent) of my closest friends had asked me to postpone the conference, but at the end it was me who knew the reasons why I wanted to speak through media,” he said.

He said he wanted to close the agenda of him being fired and ‘protect’ the government.

“I wanted to protect my government. Had the conference been successful, the government would have been very smooth because i had no intention to threaten anyone’s image,” he noted.