Dodoma – Police here have detained a TARURA driver after an incident involving a SATCO bus driver that was initially reported online as an attempted abduction, saying the object that appeared to be a pistol was a toy and that the Land Cruiser involved displayed another person’s registration plate.
Police said Sathi John Masawa, 31, allegedly threatened Said Fadhili, 54, as Fadhili was leaving the TotalEnergies office. The driver was being held for questioning and further legal procedures, police said in a statement.
The police statement does not describe an attempted kidnapping, identify a motive, or say that Fadhili was forced into the vehicle. It says a search found the pistol-like item at Masawa’s waist was a toy, and that the Land Cruiser displayed a registration number belonging to another person rather than its TARURA plate.
The clarification came after footage of a tense crowd around a SATCO bus and a Land Cruiser circulated on social media. A Jamii Voice post, attributing its account to witnesses, said a driver carrying what appeared to be a gun approached Fadhili and ordered him to enter the Land Cruiser after a collision; another widely shared post said members of the public intervened.
Those accounts had not been verified when they were posted, and the collision sequence remains disputed. But an apparent firearm, an instruction to enter another vehicle, an official-looking Land Cruiser and a crowd intervention explain why the encounter was interpreted as a possible abduction rather than an ordinary road dispute.
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The reaction also reflects a wider climate of anxiety over unresolved reports of people being taken or disappearing. The most direct bus-related precedent is the September 6, 2024 removal of CHADEMA official Ali Mohamed Kibao from a Dar es Salaam to Tanga bus by armed men.
Kibao was found dead the next day. President Samia Suluhu Hassan ordered an investigation, and police said they were investigating, but The Chanzo is not aware of any arrests, and police have issued no update on the ongoing investigation.
Another case involved Abdul Omary Nondo, ACT-Wazalendo’s youth-wing leader, who was forcibly taken after arriving at Magufuli Bus Station in Dar es Salaam on December 1, 2024. He was not removed from a bus, but was found alive and injured at Coco Beach about 18 hours later; police said they were investigating the suspects and motive.
Other unresolved reports include former ambassador Humphrey Polepole, whose family said he went missing from his Dar es Salaam home in October 2025 and whose case police said they were investigating. His family and friends remained unable to contact him as of today.
Mpaluka “Mdude” Nyagali, an activist taken from his Mbeya home in May 2025, also remains missing. His wife said the men identified themselves as police, an allegation police denied; the government later said inquiries were continuing and that it had found no evidence connecting state authorities to his disappearance.
Police have cautioned that not every missing-person report is an abduction. In June 2025, they said some reported cases had proved staged or were connected to debt, personal disputes or efforts to evade obligations, while maintaining that other reports remained under investigation.
“We are continuing to hold the suspect for questioning and further legal procedures,” police’s September 22 statement read.
Police also issued a warning to drivers against using false registration numbers, stating that doing so obstructs the identification of vehicles involved in incidents and constitutes an offence under the law.
