African corporate community shaken by Wigwe’s death

• Bad weather crashed chopper

Sopuruchi Onwuka

The death of one of Africa’s finest bankers and business enabler, Herbert Wigwe, has shaken the continent where access to finance has become one of the biggest challenges to building viable businesses.

The development comes as American authorities point at bad weather as the possible cause of the chopper crash in which Wigwe and other Nigerians on the chattered flight perished.

The 57 year old Wigwe was the Chief Executive of Access Holdings, the parent of Access Bank which he led as CEO since 2014. He died on Friday night in a helicopter crash in California, United States of America.

Wigwe death is proven case of continental tragedy that has affected the Nigerian business community, government players and many in the African corporate community where he evolved as an accounting prodigy; accumulating experiences at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Guaranty Trust Bank.

With the partnership of Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Wigwe acquired Access Bank where he became the Deputy Managing Director in 2002 and subsequently the Managing Director in 2014. He led Access Bank to become Nigeria’s largest financial services group with over 49 million customers serviced from over 600 service outlets in three continents and 18 countries.

The group’s growth ambition led to its acquisition of Diamond Bank in 2019, and a number of foreign banks in many African countries including Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Botswana, and Mozambique.

With the Acess Holdings, Wigwe expanded financial services to governments and businesses in Africa, Europe and America; building trade linkages that connect a chain of businesses and facilitate corporate transactions across the continents.

The Oracle Today Wigwe was, until his death, working to build a financial solution linkage between African and Asian businesses by establishing a China branch of Access Bank, being part of his dream of growing the bank into a global brand.

Also as part of his passion for education, Wigwe successfully built the N750 billion Wigwe University, Rivers State; an institution which, according to insiders, is scheduled to kick off academic programmes in the year and grow its student population to over 10,000 by 2030.

To the horror of the African business community, Wigwe and some members of his family featured in the manifest of a crashed helicopter, identified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as a Eurocopter EC130.

There were no survivors in the crash.

Officials investigating a helicopter crash in the California desert said conditions at the time of the accident late Friday night “suggest rain and a wintry mix.”

 “Witness reports of the weather conditions at the time of the accident suggest rain and a wintry mix,” said Michael Graham, board member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is conducting an investigation.

“The helicopter was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder,” he said at a media briefing Saturday in Barstow, California, adding that the type of aircraft wasn’t required to have those types of recording devices aboard.

The charter flight was operated by Orbic Air LLC, Graham said. The crash site was near Halloran Springs in the Mojave Desert, close to California’s border with Nevada. The Airbus Helicopters EC-130 departed Palm Springs, California, and was headed for Boulder City, Nevada, south of Las Vegas, before crashing at about 10 p.m. on Friday with six people on board, Graham said.

Apart from Herbert Wigwe, the chopper crash also claimed a former group chairman of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Abimbola Ogunbanjo. Other victims include Wigwe’s wife and son, according to reports from American newspapers.

With the announcement of the Wigwe’s death, local reports reviewed by The Oracle Today showed a wave of public agony spreading across the business community, government agencies and charity organizations in Africa.

While the structure of Access Holdings remain intact, business captains continue to lament the exit of a consummate banker who grew wealth for himself by building a financial services brand that facilitates trade transactions, business growth, economic expansion and  immense contributions to social development.

“The Access family has suffered a major loss with the passing of Dr. Wigwe, who was a great friend and fine gentleman,” Abubakar Jimoh, chairman of Access Holdings, said in a statement to the Nigerian Stock Exchange. “In line with the company’s policy, the board will soon announce the appointment of an acting group chief executive officer, even as we remain confident that the Access Group will build further on Dr. Wigwe’s legacy of growth and operational excellence.”