WIGWE: WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Joshua J. Omojuwa pays tribute to Herbert Wigwe, and urges the replication of his ideas

This is not a tribute to Herbert Wigwe. I didn’t know him personally, otherwise I’d have loved to bring his essence home. Even if I did, one couldn’t write a better one than Mr Suleiman Abubakar, MD/CEO of Sterling. Whilst appearing to put it in a simple way, he effectively captured the simplicity of the late Herbert, an interpretation of how he lived, “a true visionary”. As far as tributes go, Feyi Fawehinmi (@DoupleEph on X) wrote an excellent one. He captured the layers of the man the best way someone who didn’t know him personally could, devoid of the biases that accompany such proximity. 

Another in-depth piece, written by Ijeoma Nwogwugwu, “Telling Chizoba’s Story,” published by THISDAY, elegantly captures Mrs Chizoba Wigwe’s person in a way it hasn’t been told since the tragedy.

A time will come, when the tributes will stop and public tears on account of this tragedy will cease. It will not be because people no longer care about those we lost. It will be what it has always been; life is what it is and people move on.

When that time comes, the ones who loved them, the ones they loved, will be left alone to mourn. To know the tugging hurt of being alone even in the presence of many. To live through the reality of a life that no longer gives breath to the ones they cherished the most. In the loud quiet of those moments, the quiet memories of what was and the echoes of what could have been meet at the point of what is; life will never be the same again.

The man’s life was a tribute to a lot more than the celebration of what was. A fearless visionary, he sought to and did change every industry he played in. We were introduced to him through the hallowed heights of the conquests he reached in the financial sector, walking side by side with his chosen brother, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede. Success with money often does not require much talking, because money does speak for itself. It is as objective as the problems it fixes. In that world, Herbert ruled supreme, yet he only centered his people and the objectives of his platforms.

In construction, Chizoba Wigwe via Craneburg showed that excellence isn’t the preserve of foreign entities. That Nigerians can build with precision, worthy of global attention, in Nigeria. She gave us concrete proof of that. In the art, Herbert’s abstract reverence for its place and utility in society and the commitment to collect the ones he chose to, portrayed him as a human Pyramid of Egypt, matchless. He was a quiet venture capitalist and helped to support and invest in platforms that were led by a new generation. These he mostly did as a show of commitment to the future.

Amidst those giant strides touching people, across many places and platforms, known and unknown, the only thing he ever put his name on was Wigwe University.

Herbert Wigwe spent his last days seeding The Wigwe University. He recruited the right people into the faculty, talked some exemplary Nigerians into its board of trustees and handed some of our country’s most trusted technocrats a blueprint to build a sustainable system. He called the university by a name he was still using, “Wigwe University,” only, as we have now come to see, he was done using it. He was ready to hand it over to what he hoped and designed to be, “Africa’s No. 1 university.” He swore by that promise.

Nigeria’s Central Bank Chief, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, further emphasised the obvious. That a substantial amount of Nigeria’s foreign exchange challenges was due to pressure from Medical and Education tourism. He said the number was more than the country’s reserves. Casual as it sounded, that’s mindboggling, especially when you consider that those are only two inputs out of many. The Governor then spoke about things we could do differently. Wigwe was an answer to that.

Wigwe is the answer to that. It was shocking to hear some Nigerians complain that the university had listed its fees in US dollars. One of the contradictions of our country is that people cry about a problem, then because they don’t know what the solution looks like, they cry about the solution too.

How do you look to attract International Students to an institution in Nigeria, whilst listing to that audience in Naira? Vladimir Putin can choose to speak to the world in his local language and trust that people will care enough to translate him. He has earned that notoriety. If you want to sell to the world, you speak to that world in the language it understands, the United States Dollars! We need to build institutions — especially hospitals and schools — that are intended to attract foreigners, even as they address local gaps.

At the presentation of Olumide Soyombo’s book, Vantage, in Lagos on 12 September 2023, Wigwe quoted Shakespeare in Julius Caesar.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;…
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”

He spoke about “sustainability and succession” and how “we can create great institutions”. When people die, we hurt, and we cry. Pain and tears have their utility, fickle and transient, but they have their value. We must allow ourselves to feel what we feel because there is time for everything.

When Herbert Wigwe’s death was announced, a broke nation became a broken one. The one we mourn has built a redemption from that poverty. In the various institutions he helped to nurture, more so, in the one he put his name. Ideas like his need believers and supporters. They need replication. By people, above and beyond millionaires and politicians who just want to gather wealth for its sake, the ones who’d see that in the end, it is all in the name. Rest In Peace Chizoba, Chizi and Herbert Wigwe, and Abimbola Ogunbanjo. Here is to the fearless ones, like Wigwe.

 Omojuwa is chef strategist, Alpha Reach/ author, Digital Wealth Book