How Access Bank CEO, Wigwe Died
By Timibra Ken-Peretei.
Herbert Wigwe, the chief executive officer of Nigeria’s Access Holdings, parent of Access Bank, one of Africa’s largest banking groups, died in a helicopter crash in California on the night of Friday 9th February, two people close to his team confirmed to the media. His wife, child, and a former group chairman of the Nigerian Exchange, which operates the country’s main stock market, were also killed in the crash alongside two others. There were no survivors.
The helicopter, identified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as a Eurocopter EC130, crashed near the border between California and Nevada, the New York Times reported today. The FAA and the U.S. transportation safety agency are investigating the crash, the Times reported. The crash occured about 60 miles from Las Vegas. One of the people close to the Wigwe team confirmed that he was expected to attend this weekend’s Super Bowl American football event which is taking place in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Herbert Wigwe, who was 57, had led Access Bank as CEO since 2014, having taken co-ownership of the bank with his partner Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede in 2002. He spearheaded an Africa expansion drive that has involved taking majority stakes in or outright acquisitions of banks in Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Mozambique. Access Bank’s acquisition of a competitor in 2019 has seen it become Nigeria’s largest bank by total assets. Wigwe told Semafor Africa in November the bank was close to finalizing a regulatory process to launch its first full banking service in Asia in the first quarter of 2024.
Beyond banking, Wigwe’s other major interest was in higher education. His Wigwe University, located in the oil-producing Rivers state in southern Nigeria, is set to take off with its inaugural academic session later this year. The project is estimated to cost $500 million and plans to enroll 10,000 students over the next five years.
In a One Big Idea piece for Semafor last month, Wigwe explained his view that investing in higher education is critical for broadening Africa’s economic opportunities around the world, and a necessary pillar of stemming the migration trends that feed fears of destabilization in Europe and America.
