Sanusi Dantata

Infobox Person
name = Sanusi Dantata


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birth_place = Kano
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occupation = Businessman
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Sanusi Dantata was a Nigerian entrepreneur and son of Alhassan Dantata.

He was also a personal friend of the Qadiriyya scholar, Ali Kumasi and supported some of the latter's religious works in Kano. His support for Ali Kumasi led him into conflict with Nasiru Kabaya, the leader of the Qadiriyya movement in Kano and West Africa and a former tutor of Sanusi. Both Kumasi and Dantata tried to promote an independent Qadiriyya scholarship and religious authority, challenging the leadership of Kabaya. However, by the early 1970s, both men joined the Kabaya faction of Kano Qadiriyya. [Roman Loimeier. Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria, Northwestern UniversityPress, 1997. p 65-70. ISBN 0810113465]

In the 1960s, he was the largest licensed produce buying agent of Ground nut in Nigeria. However by 1980, he had relinquished some of his business interest to his sons, including the eldest, Abdulkadir Sanusi Dantata, who co-founded Dantata and Sawoe and Asada Farms. [Tom G. Forrest. The Advance of African Capital: The Growth of Nigerian Private Enterprise, University of Virginia Press. p 209. ISBN 0813915627]

Business network

The Dantata family operated their businesses partly through a patrimonial system of credit allocation, trade and business transfers to kin, household and others members of their clientage. At one point in time, both Sanusi and his brother, Aminu controlled about 200 agents involved in buying Kola nut, Livestock, Ground nut and Merchandise. The system involved about five autonomous level of associates, agents, and farmers. Some members of these system engage in buying goods from restricted rural areas and transporting it to the city where another group of agents in the Urban area buys the goods and store them in stead for Dantata. Also the Dantata family through marriage and credit extension is linked with a few independent trading families in Kano and Northern Nigeria. [Jane I. Guyer. Feeding African Cities: Studies in Regional Social History, Indiana University Press, 1987. p 87-91. ISBN 0253321026 ]

References