Dangote

Dangote: Maintaining the Rich Kano Tradition

Kabiru Mohammed

Kano has been an important business nerve center since the beginning of the last millennium. Apart from being a West African caravan trade route and a nodal town, it also serve as an intellectual haven that has till date, continue to attracts diverse peoples with different world views and idiosyncrasies from far and near. Its enterprising business oriented inhabitants have over the years straddled virtually every nooks and crannies of Africa and beyond in search of Golden Fleece. Consequently, the city has produced many important business men/women of timber and caliber who have made name that has reverberated throughout Africa. Examples are: Kundila, Na-goda, Alhaji Angale, Nababa dan badamasi, and Alhassan Dantata to mention just a few.

In keeping with this noble tradition, the city currently, has the singular honour and privilege of producing the Africa's richest personality in the person of Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the Croesus of our time, the man with a Midas torch, who single handedly transformed a small merchant business into a vast business empires with interest in consumer goods, Oil and Gas and Telecommunication within a span of three decades. As history always repeats itself, this tradition will remain in the annals of Kano history, what remain is for the resourceful people of Kano to brace up to the challenges in order to maintain the tempo.

That Dangote has taken the Nigerian business environment by storm is simply a huge understatement. This naturally caused furors and tempestuous emotions among sections of Nigerian critics who may not like his meteoric rise to stardom. In our world full of retrogressive tendencies, inferiority complex and innate conservatisms and other negativities, his phenomenal rise was considered unusual, more so, because it was accomplished by a man that, think ahead of his time and committed resources and energy without looking back. The phenomenal growth and achievement is viewed by his traducers as out of the ordinary and should be curtails by any means. Never!

By his resourcefulness and business acumen, the business mogul has raised the standard a step forward. He has moved the bar to a new bench-mark in keeping with the rich Kano tradition of producing Models and pace-setters in various fields of human endeavours. Dangote has blazed the trails and scored many goals in economic development, because while his predecessors were more or less at home with tradings,he boldly and courageously ventured into a world of manufacturing; thus following consciously the foot steps of another glorious Kano business persona, late Alhaji Nababa dan Badamasi,and of blessed memory who single handedly set up Gaskiya Textile During the reign of Gen. Buhari,the largest Individually owned textile Manufacturing outfit at that time.

As it is however, success always comes with its own doses of problems, especially in our own world full of Jelousy, hatred, animosity and strong penchant to turn the hands of the clock back and run down any promising personality or endevour.Our society unfortunately, is simply a mirror of anything back-ward. We always desire to maintain the statues quo with so much motion without actual movement or progress. This negative attitude was the reason in my own view, that made Dangote to draws flak and ridicules and envy from those that were left behind in the murky waters of economic adventurism, were only the fittest gifted with greater capacity to take risk and venture into a new horizon head-on survived to tell the story.

Today, virtually every problem ranging from our country's inability to provide basic social amenities and critical infrastructures to its citizens, pervasive poverty, ignorance and diseases are traced to Dangote,the criticisms has even graduated from issues to attacking his personality and internal family squabbles that are amicably solved without any extraneous involvement. This is very bad indeed and smacks of our very low self esteem and a strong statement of the very low level we have degenerated in our desire to run down the Man. by going into what is ordinarily a family affair, the critics have taken their criticism too far and can not be acceptable by any stretch of the imagination by all men of good conscience.

Among the front liners in the daily bashing of the business man, the one that baffles me the most, is the relentless media war embarked upon by an FCT based Newspaper own questionably, by a Northern minority, that took it as a religious doctrine to attack and malign the character of Dangote at any given fora and under any given opportunity and guise. The paper has thrown decency, decorum and journalistic ethics to the dogs in its quest to run down one of our own. This naturally made some of us that greatly admired his exceptional business dexterity to suspect a religious and ethnic dimension and colorations to the whole issues and to conclude that, the paper is carrying out a script from some shadowy enemies of the business tycoon with the sole intent to achieve some sinister motives. Come to think of it this way, the contentious issue of the sales of the refineries has already been resolved, but Dangote is still being subjected to relentless and constant reproachment and abuse haba!

But the pattern of his employment which cut across ethnic and religious barriers, coupled with the geographical spread of his companies around the vast expanse of Nigeria greatly negate the mundane principles upon which his traducers based their misjudgments. He has already transcended petty prejudice along time ago.Dangote therefore, should not in any way get discourage in his steady progress, by the antics of those that took it upon themselves the wahala to assiduously criticize him; instead it should ginger him the more, until he stamp his feats in the sand of time.

It may interest his traducers to know that the man has not restricted himself to Nigerian market alone as plan are already in top-gear to set up many more companies in other African countries, there is also a serious thought to exploits the vast west African market for his quality range of products. In fact, the company is going international! To God be the Glory.

It is therefore imperative to remind the critics that, their persistent bashing of the man is simply an exercise in futility and wastage of precious time and energy. Because it only served to embolden the business tycoon, to forge ahead for more successes and accomplishment in life. As the Hausa have a saying that, when the Sun rises in the firmaments, mere mortal's palm can not inhibit it from beaming its golden rays to the world, because it is doing so, by the express will of the Almighty Allah(swt) ,(tsuliyar Saniya, tai nesa da 'kasa); I rest my case!