February 18, (THEWILL) – The pain and sorrow that accompanied the news of the death of the Group Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings Plc, Dr Herbert Wigwe, on Friday, February 9, 2024 has left a lot of Nigerians hollow. He was alive one minute and dead the next. What is even more saddening is the fact that his death and that of five others happened on a day the Lagos City Marathon, an annual sporting event sponsored by Access Bank, a subsidiary of Access Holdings was underway.
Wigwe, in company with his first son, Chizi, his wife, Doreen Chizoba and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, a former chairman of Nigerian Exchange Group, died after the helicopter they were traveling in, crashed between California and Nevada, in the United States of America. They were traveling to Las Vegas to watch the Super Bowl when the unfortunate incident happened. He has been described by many – across all economic, religious and social, political and ethnic strata – who ever had any dealings with him, to be a hardworking, selfless and kind person who was passionate about humanity. It is for this reason, IVORY UKONU deemed it necessary to chronicle his life, times and different sides in a tribute to him.
How he died with his family
Wigwe had departed Lagos for a business meeting in London and then got his family to join him for the trip to the US. Ironically, he hardly travelled with his family. Together with Ogunbanjo, they all flew from London to Los Angeles and then chartered a chopper from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The journey from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is approximately a four-hour journey while an air trip is approximately an hour and 30 minutes. They chose to travel with the latter. They however had excess luggage that could not go on the helicopter. This necessitated his personal assistant, Faleye Olushola, who was also billed to be on the ill-fated helicopter to opt for a road trip so as to keep an eye on their luggage.
The Eurocopter EC130 helicopter, Flight N130CZ, operated by Orbic Air LLC, took off from Palm Springs Airport but somewhere in San Bernardino County, a border city between Nevada and California, the chopper disappeared. It was later discovered to have crashed near Interstate 15 in Halloran Springs in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, just outside of Las Vegas.
The chopper took off around 8:45 p.m and crashed just after 10 p.m. The helicopter caught fire upon impact killing everyone on board. Wigwe was only 57 years old. The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) an independent US government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation pointed to rainy and wintry weather as possible causes of the crash, although investigations are still ongoing.
Where he was headed
Wigwe and his companions were on their way to the Super Bowls in Las Vegas, United States. For as long as anyone could recall, he had made attending the Super Bowl one of his annual rituals. The Super Bowl is the annual league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966. Since 2022, the game has been played on the second Sunday in February every year. This year’s game was between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. This was the game Wigwe was flying to Las Vegas to attend, but fate had other plans. Besides Wigwe, quite a number of other affluent and prominent Nigerians are known to be ardent fans of the game and like Wigwe, they also make it a habit to always attend every year.
The consummate banker
While he was a staff of Guaranty Trust Bank, where he committed over a decade of his working life, Wigwe and his long-time friend and business partner, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, began making plans to own their own bank. They made a daring move and in 2002, they bought Access Bank, marking the beginning of a transformative journey in the Nigerian banking sector. They were both in their mid-30s at the time they made this bold move, Imoukhuede 36, Wigwe, 35. In 15 years, the bank grew to become the fourth largest bank in Nigeria. They took a tiny bank from a street corner in Lagos and turned it into a sprawling financial empire across Africa.
Between 2002 and 2014, Wigwe served as the company’s Deputy Managing Director. In 2014, he assumed the role of CEO and Group Managing Director of Access Bank. For eight years on the saddle, he led Access Bank Plc through an extraordinary growth period. He served as the chairman of Access Bank, Ghana, Access Investment and Securities Limited, Central Securities and Clearing System and presently as Chairman of Access Bank Limited and Unified Payments Services Limited. In 2022, he became the CEO of Access Holdings. At the time of his death, he was the Chairman of Access Bank (UK) Limited, a board member of Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company and a member of the advisory Board for Friends Africa.
A champion of mergers and acquisitions
He had a can-do spirit which was infectious, and he liked to upturn conventional ways of business with his mergers and acquisition mindset. He yearned for Access Bank to become a significant player in the African financial landscape and so himself and his partner, through Access Bank began actively expanding its reach through strategic acquisitions. First it was Diamond Bank in January 2019; then Finibanco Angola S.A. in October 2022; then later, Sidian Bank in Kenya in June 2022. In July 2023, Access Bank and Standard Chartered Bank entered into agreements for the acquisition of Standard Chartered’s shareholding in its subsidiaries in Angola, Cameroon, The Gambia, and Sierra Leone, and its Consumer, Private & Business Banking business in Tanzania. Then earlier this year, the bank acquired an 80 per cent stake in Ugandan-based Finance Trust Bank (FTB)
A passionate leader of thought
Because he was open-minded, appreciated differences and respected divergent opinions, he created a leadership series known as the Access Conference. The biennial event is Access Bank’s response to a global call for corporate involvement in resolving the major challenges facing humanity. Since its inauguration in 2013, the Access Conference has consistently engaged global leaders like former US president, George Bush; former France president; Nicolas Sarkozy; former Ghanaian president, John Kufuor; Steve Wozniak, Narayana Murthy, José MarÃa Figueres and Muhammad Yunus – by provoking debates on issues of threats and opportunities to the world and reaffirming the importance of leadership to national and corporate successes.
A lover of art
Wigwe’s love for the art world was to say, the least, second to none. He had a pride of place among top art collectors in Nigeria. He collected art as a passion, both favouring foreign and indigenous creations. His offices across the continent and his homes are adorned with various intriguing art works that do not come cheap. So in love with arts and its various forms was he, that he commissioned Kehinde Wiley, a Nigerian/American portrait painter known for his naturalistic paintings of black people that reference the work of Old Master paintings, to make a painting of himself and his wife, Chizoba. He held a small party for the unveiling of the portraits which was done by Kehinde himself who he flew into the country for that purpose. Kehinde became most sought after when he was commissioned to paint former President Barack Obama’s portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in 2017. The Columbus Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of Kehinde’s work in 2007 and describes his paintings as “heroic portraits which address the image and status of young African American men in contemporary culture.” Wigwe gives his father, Pastor Shyngle Wigwe, a former director of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), credit for helping him cultivate his love for arts.
His premium educational dream
Wigwe was not only a prominent figure in the financial industry, but he was also passionately committed to quality education. Little wonder, he vigorously pursued one of his dream projects, Wigwe University which is situated in his hometown in Rivers State. The university was all set to disrupt the higher education system in Nigeria with their approach to teaching and learning. The university’s vision is to ignite Africa’s potential for prosperity and nurture fearless leaders who will change the course of history. The university is to be modelled after Harvard University.
He believed that education is the key to unlocking Africa’s potential and through Wigwe University, he sought to leave a legacy that will contribute immensely to the continent’s greatness. His commitment to education is rooted in the belief that nurturing intellectual capital is pivotal for societal development. Wigwe planned to teach and mentor students and engage some of the country’s prominent entrepreneurs, including billionaire Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, to teach at the university. Despite his demise, the university’s board of trustees has assured prospective students, faculty and staff that it remains committed to ensuring that the dreams of Wigwe and his aspirations for the project are fulfilled.
A humanitarian through Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe (HOW) foundation
Herbert Wigwe was a philanthropist committed to humanity through his self-named foundation, Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe (HOW) foundation, a social enterprise that focuses on youth empowerment through leadership and mentorship and on health, specifically malaria and prostate cancer. Also, through Access Bank, he initiated a collaboration with United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, to offer support to vulnerable children, orphans and internally displaced persons in the northern part of Nigeria. To raise awareness for this purpose, the bank organizes the annual high-profile Access Bank/UNICEF Charity Shield Polo tournament mostly held in London, United Kingdom.
A big supporter of Small Business Enterprises (SMEs)
Herbert Wigwe was a supporter of Small Businesses Enterprises, SMEs. While he was the managing director of Access Bank, he secured a loan support worth up to $50 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to help the bank provide increased trade financing and working capital lending to their business clients experiencing disrupted cash flows, supported business activity, particularly SMEs navigating the economic challenges during the COVID-19 lockdown while setting a course of recovery for them. His intervention also helped to preserve jobs.
One good example of how Wigwe supported SMEs comes to mind and that is with a young man named Editi Effiong and how he gave the latter’s business its big break.
Editi runs Anakle, a digital marketing agency which created the popular Bride Price App. Impressed by the vision and innovation that went into the development of the App which he stumbled on, on X (formerly known as Twitter), Wigwe invited Editi and his team, and handed over Access Bank’s social media accounts to them to manage, with a hefty monthly retainer. He went beyond the management of Access Bank’s social media and commissioned them to create most of Access Bank’s television advertisements shown on CNN. Wigwe believed Editi and his team could do and gave them a chance.
The man who had no time for pettiness
Some years ago, Herbert Wigwe recruited Gbenga Agboola, the co-founder of Flutterwave, a FINTECH company as a staff member of Access Bank. He was asked to run an e-commerce unit called ‘Pay with Capture.’ But rather than do the job he was employed for, Agboola reportedly used the resources at his disposal to start his own business, Flutterwave, a rival company doing exactly what he was hired to do. Herbert never held grudges against him. Instead, he supported Flutterwave by speaking to potential clients and investors on Agboola’s behalf, adopting him as his mentee, guiding and directing him as he built the biggest payment and e-commerce company in Africa today.
A fitness buff
He loved to keep fit, little wonder he looked far younger than his age. He preached about keeping a healthy body and ran for fitness. This perhaps explains why he, together with his partner, floated the idea of the annual Lagos City Marathon.
A church boy who was a ‘dangerous’ giver
He was a committed Christian and a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, (RCCG) City of David parish, Victoria Island, Lagos. He had a heart for the things of God and used his resources to honour God and humanity. Wigwe’s many acts towards Christendom are too numerous to enumerate but for the sake of this article, I will name a few. During the time his parish embarked on the humongous project to build the RCCG’s Trinity Towers of 12 floors complete with a helipad, he was made the chairman of the finance committee.
Before the foundation of the project began, Wigwe paid the rent for two branches of Access Bank to be situated in each wing of the tower at completion. Five years rent each making a total of 10 years. One does not need to be told that as a prime property the cumulative rent was in billions of naira. This was his way of helping the church realise some funds to kick start the project. He set up a fund-raising event for the building project and brought in people from America to attend. At the end of the event, N600 million was realised.
When the church needed to take facility from the bank, Wigwe supported by calling on his wife and friends to drop their widow’s mite and they were usually in millions. When his parish wanted to start a project they called ‘God’s children’s great talent,’ Wigwe partnered with the church. While the church spent about N300 million for it, he spent about N500 million. He loved children and freely gave scholarships to them. He adopted a number of them and took care of them. For years, he was quietly paying the salary of the City of David parish classical choir every month without fail. When his parish wanted to build a school at Makoko slum for indigent students, Wigwe through his foundation partnered with the church in terms of salaries for teachers, feeding the students every day and sundry other issues.
The truth about Craneburg Construction Company
Although Wigwe was believed to be the founder of Craneburg Construction Company, only a few privileged people knew that his wife, Chizoba was actually the founder of the company and ran the company herself. It is reportedly one of Nigeria’s largest, diversified construction groups that employs 7,000 people working across all major sectors of the economy. She personally executed and monitored road, infrastructure and building projects in different states. The firm built the highways, bridges and toll plaza from Lekki Phase II all the way to Epe town. The firm was behind some airport construction projects, oil and gas, and marine projects etc.
His awards and honours
Herbert Wigwe was a recipient of numerous awards. He was named 2016 Banker of The Year by ‘The Sun’ and ‘Vanguard’ newspapers. In 2020, ‘Leadership’ Newspapers named him Banker of the Year. In 2021, he was presented the Juris Law Award for his outstanding contributions to Corporate Governance and Rule of Law in Nigeria’s Banking Industry. In the same year, he was named African Banker of the Year by organisers of African Banker Award and the Best Banking CEO by organisers of Global Brands Magazine awards. In 2022, the Nigerian National Legacy Awards (NNLA) honoured him as an outstanding achiever from Rivers state. The NNLA, since 2010 has been dedicated to honouring industrious Nigerians and corporate concerns in varied endeavors whose outstanding contributions with commitment to integrity remarkably enhance national development. In the same year, he was honoured by former president Muhammadu Buhari with the Commander of the Order of the Niger, CON. In 2018, he was bestowed with an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). Wigwe was also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, a fellow of The Institute of Credit Administration, and an honorary member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.
His dream home
In December 2023, Wigwe moved into his dream home on Queen’s Drive, Ikoyi, Lagos. A mighty imposing edifice that reeks of ambition and class, the home located on 23,000 square meters of land is everything one can ever dream to be called a home, more like a sanctuary. No cost was spared in building the home. Built in conjunction with his wife and by Craneburg Construction Company, the 20-bedroom mansion boasts of any of life’s comfort that one can think of.
His wife, Chizoba
Unlike most wives of bank founders or managing directors, Chizoba Doreen was no trophy wife. She was as immensely wealthy and successful as her husband. They had four children, one of who was Chizi before death snatched them. The other three children are Tochi, the eldest now, who is 26, Hannah and David. Chizoba schooled in the United States and 31 years ago, at only 26, relocated to Nigeria with her university degrees to start life afresh back home. She was born into affluence but that didn’t stop her from making her own money. Her late dad was Chief Cyprian Chukwuemeka Nwuba, a chartered accountant who worked for Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) where he rose to the position of African Financial Controller, before moving to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) where he was the Group General Manager, Finance and Accounts, before his retirement. Her mum was a senior public servant. Chizoba began as a trader and later began importing all sorts of things to sell. She later grew her business to span construction, real estate and the hospitality industries.
His parents
Herbert Wigwe’s parents, Pastor Shingle and Stella Wigwe are still very much alive. His father is a pastor with the RCCG. They have been married for 56 years and just as they survived their own parents, they had hoped that their children would survive them. But fate had other plans. They lost their first child, Osita who was then 34 years old, over 27 years ago and now they would be buring another son, a daughter-in-law and a grandson. Pastor Shingle joined Nigerian Television Authority as a broadcast engineer and served in Rivers state after leaving the Nigerian Army. He was also a senior lecturer at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria engineering training school in Lagos. Pastor Shyngle rose through the ranks as a general manager of NTA Port-Harcourt, Rivers State and rose to become the director-general of the organisation. They are now left with their four remaining children, Joyce, Peggy, Stella, Emeka and their grandchildren.
…….And
Wigwe’s sudden departure leaves a void in the banking industry and the community he served tirelessly. His legacy of excellence, compassion and dedication to community development will forever be remembered. Nigerians are also consoled by the fact that he is in a better place, and the businesses he built will speak eloquently of his legacies in years to come.
Ivory Ukonu is a versatile journalist with many years of experience, with entertainment and society reporting as her area of core competence.
