GUSAU

town, Sokoto state, northern Nigeria, on the Sokoto River. It grew after the arrival of the railway from Zaria, 105 miles (169 km) southeast, in 1927 and is now a major collecting point for cotton and peanuts (groundnuts) grown in the surrounding area. Although cotton ginning, weaving, and dyeing are long-established local activities, it was not until the late 1960s that a modern textile plant opened in the town. A seed-oil mill and soybean-meal processing plant were also built. Besides cotton, cloth, and peanuts, Gusau exports tobacco (grown in the Sokoto River's floodplains around Talata Mafara, 48 miles northwest), chickens, and goats to Zaria. The town's Hausa and Fulani peoples also raise cattle, sheep, donkeys, horses, and camels and trade in millet, sorghum, rice, cowpeas, beans, and floodplain-grown vegetables. Gusau has an Islamic women's teacher-training college, and its hospitals, health office, dispensary, and maternity clinic make it a chief medical centre for its part of the state. The town is located on the main railway between Kaura Namoda and Zaria, and it is on a secondary highway between Talata Marfara and Funtua. Pop. (1994 est.) 150,300.