Alhassan Dantata
Alhassan Dantata ((Listenⓘ); Arabic: ال حسان دان تاتا, romanized: al-Ḥasan ɗan Tātā; 1877 – 17 August 1955) was a Nigerian businessman and philanthropist.
Soon after Abdullahi’s birth, Baba Talatin moved from Danshayi, a small village roughly fifteen kilometers from Kano, to Madobi.
Madobi continued to be Abdullahi’s main base of operations until after Dantata’s birth in 1877, when he permanently moved to Bebeji, a market and fortress town south of Kano.
She eventually moved to Accra, at the time an important trading center in the British Gold Coast, leaving her children in the care of an old slave woman named Tata.
He was encouraged to save much of his money by Tata, even buying him an asusu (ceramic moneybox), which is still in possession of the Dantata family today.
The final version claims that he escaped shortly after his capture, joined a Gonja-bound caravan, and returned to his mother in Accra.
[4]: 383 In 1914, by the order of the judicial council of Emir Muhammad Abbas, Dantata was able to reclaim his father’s seized house in Bebeji.
[8][9] Dantata was in Bebeji when British troops invaded the Kano Emirate on February 1, 1903, conquering the town after its sarki was killed.
His experience in coastal trade and basic knowledge of English gave him an advantage over other Kano merchants working with the company.
His three eldest sons, Ahmadu, Sanusi and Aminu, were in charge of land, building, and contracting and transport sections of the business, with each backed by a separate organisation.
[2]: 207 In the late 1940s, Dantata helped establish the Kano Traders' General Conference, which eventually became the Amalgamated Northern Merchants' Union (ANMU) in the early 1950s.
However, Dantata’s two sons, Aminu and Mahmudu, were known members of the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), a socialist party that was the NPC's biggest opposition in the North.
[14][11]: 113 [15]: 159–161 Ahmadu, an NPC member and Dantata’s oldest son, also contested against and defeated Aminu Kano in the 1956 election for the Northern House of Assembly.
On this trip, he also went to England and was presented to George V.[18] In 1927, he sponsored 16 persons for pilgrimage to Mecca, including his Mallam from when he lived as an almajiri in Accra in the early 1890s.
His son, Aminu, and his grandchildren, like Mariya Sanusi Dantata, as well as his great-grandchildren, including Aliko Dangote, still finance the pilgrimages of other Muslims to Mecca yearly.
With the help of his family, some of his wealth was identified by the Kano Native Administration, amounting to around £350,000 in Northern Nigeria alone, before they abandoned the search.
