Late Usman Amaka Dantata, the third male child of the 12 children of late Alhaji Sanusi Dantata was born in Saudi Arabia in 1950. He died on July 20, 2009 in Kano. Amaka had been ridden since 1985 after unknown assassins shot him five times in his Probyn Road residence in Ikoyi, Lagos. He was first flown to London, where the bullets were successfully removed and later moved to a Florida hospital near his Palm Beach house in US.
In 1972, when late Usman Dantata went to Lagos to manage the haulage network of his father, nobody thought he would rise to become a multimillionaire in a short period of time. When the military government of late General Murtala Mohammed came to power, there was a serious congestion at the port to the extent that ships carrying medicine, food, among others, were unable to berth. The government found that the solution was to give the import license to a few individuals. Late Usman Dantata, then 26, and late Yinka Folawiyo were the only people given the privilege of importing cement into the country. Dantata, at that tender age, had a sea terminal in Apapa Lagos, where his ships berthed. Had he lived long without the Probyn Road tragedy, he would have built the first private comprehensive cement industry in Nigeria. This is a dream his nephew, Aliko Dangote realized. But even after the withdrawal of the monopoly, Usman had already made his name.
Usman Dantata was the Nigerian El Dorado – the mythical golden man. He went, like a star character in Sydney Sheldon’s Master of the Game Jamie McGregor, in search of gold, and got bars of it. And much like the mythical King Midas, whatever young Usman Dantata touched miraculously became gold. He rose astronomically to become a major cement importer, aviation magnet, farmer, industrialist and a world class polo player – all in less than ten years. His farm, rated the largest in West Africa at the time, produced 100,000 chicken daily. Usman also had sunflower farm in Brasil. Like late pop star Michael Jackson, late Amaka was ‘a millionaire who lived like a millionaire’. Living lavishly in many king-size mansions, flying within and outside the country in his private jets, everything for Usman Amaka was befitting a king. Certain aristocrat he hosted to a dinner at his London home was the heir apparent to the British royal throne, Prince Charles. Even in Nigeria, Usman mingled with the rich, top government officials and governors of the time. Not only in Nigeria Usman lived in highbrow area, he had a house in Huston very close to the house of former President George Bush, Snr.
Usman Amaka’s fleet of private jets, comprised a Boeing 707, a Falcon, an HS 125, a Sikorsky helicopter and another from Bristow, were but the envy of the rich men. Former governors Bamanga Tukur and Dabo Lere were some of his friends. Some of the current crop of leaders were either his subordinates or friends. The incumbent governor of Kogi State Captain Idris Wada was his pilot.
May his soul rest in peace.
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*This is the first in the series “THE GREAT MEN OF KANO”, featuring great men and women who made Kano proud during their life time. If you have picture and short success story of a business man, technocrat, scientist, politician, educationist, etc from Kano (who excelled in his career) feel free to share with me in my inbox me
