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THE NIGERIAN ELITE OF 1900s
<p>They was a time in Nigeria when agricultural crops were the major export from the country, the palm oil, rubber, groundnuts and timber and the men who controlled this agricultural trade in Nigeria were the big boys of those days. This was at a time where there were groundnut pyramids in kano, those groundnuts pyramids where bags of groundnut stacked in the shape of a pyramid, most of them were taller than tall buildings in Nigeria then.</p><p><br/></p><p>There was a man called Al Hassan Dantata, there was a day he pointed at 60 groundnut pyramids in kano and said these are mine. A groundnut pyramid then was estimated to be about 15000 bags of groundnut and Dantata would have 60 of them, he was regarded as the richest man in the whole of West Africa.</p><p><br/></p><p>For you to understand it better, in 1929 when a bank called the bank of British West Africa which is known today as first bank opened a bank in Kano, Dantata deposited 20 Camel load of sliver coins in his account in the bank, imagine what it means to take your money to the bank, you had to go in a convoy, a convoy of 20 heavily loaded Camels, we know how strong Camel can be and we can consider how heavy these bags of money were. His business was not just in trading groundnut he also sold kola nut, cattle's, beads, precious stones and other commodities across the northern region, as far back as 1918 when British company were the major business in Nigeria, Dantata was selling ship loads of of groundnut to a company called the Royal Niger company. He was so wealthy during is day in the year 1949 he donated a property worth 10,200 pounds for the construction of the first indigenous textile mill in the northern Nigeria.</p><p><br/></p><p>Today the name Dantata is still connected to wealth and his great grandson is the richest man in Nigeria called Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Dangote mother Mariya Sanusi Dantata was the daughter of Alhaji Sanusi Dantata while Sanusi Dantata was the son of Al Hassan Dantata.</p>
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