Celebrating Visionary Aig-Imoukhuede at 58

Olusegun Fafore

The joy of his birthday this year was eclipsed by the horrible incident of February 9, 2024, in which he lost his brother, friend and business partner – Dr. Herbert Wigwe, alongside his wife and son in a helicopter crash in Nipton, California, United States of America.

If Herbert was alive, he would have been fifty-eight years old, too, on August 15, 2024. Aigboje and Herbert were born the same year but separated by one month and nine days. Sadly, the unfortunate incident brought their shared yearly celebration of life’s expeditions, accomplishments, and youthful memories to a permanent end.

For Aigboje, this year’s celebration will not only be desiccated but also stripped of the colorfulness that characterises his birthday celebrations. From this very year, he will no longer hear Herbert’s energetic voice wishing you a happy birthday, just the way he will not anymore be able to call him on his birthdays. The chasm between Aig and Herbert has become too wide to close, but the world has prayed that the gulf remains unclosed for at least five more decades.

These are not what Aigboje wished for, because his prayer was that God should grant Herbert and himself the grace to retell the beautiful story of Access Bank, and their joint entrepreneurial conquests as Septuagenarians, to encourage growing business leaders in one of the world’s leading Business Schools.

It may seem that some of these dreams have faded permanently but we need to remember that as humans “We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon and the liberated butterfly.”

Our limited view of events and interpretation of occurrences often torment our souls temporarily until we later find meaning in our circumstances. I cannot ask Aigboje to free his mind of the thoughts of what would have been, but he needs to know that his brother and partner – Herbert, his wife and son are resting peacefully in the Lord.

Herbert was great alive and greater in death. The world stood still at his death. As unpleasant as the incident was, the incident showed how important Herbert had become and the influence Access Bank had garnered across the globe. God has indeed blessed the work of your hands – Aigboje and Hebert.
Even though that was not the manner Aigboje would have loved to showcase the success of his transformational leadership that took Access Bank to a place of distinction on the African financial services landscape, but the triumphs were too visible to ignore by the world.

As a business leader, with extensive experience in banking and finance, spanning over three decades in investment banking, financial markets, risk management, strategy and commercial banking, Aigboje’s extra-ordinary acumen is now on demand than before when the world applauded him for the successful transformation of Access Bank Plc between 2002 and 2013. The bank’s top five bank status in Nigeria and repositioning as financial services institution of repute in Africa put him on a global stage.

In his early thirties when he was appointed Group Managing Director, the Nigerian banking landscape did anticipate that an industry revolution was brewing. Steadily and stealthily, the initiatives he introduced at Access Bank became industry practice standard.

Aigboje’s brilliance radiated so brightly that he became the industry’s leading change agent. As an initiator of potent ideas, Aigboje, who was a member of the Nigeria’s Banker’s Committee in 2012 led the sector’s voluntary adoption of the Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles – an initiative which has since been replicated across the world.

His innovative mind did not only contribute to nurturing the growth of the Nigerian financial services sector, but he also served as the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fuel Subsidies. That appointment was more than a call to service for him.

While his services saved Nigeria more than $6 billion in fraudulent petroleum subsidy claims, Aigboje risked his life in checkmating some of the country’s most notorious saboteurs in the quest to stop them from continuously bleeding the Nigerian economy.

This distinguished Nigerian, who was the founding chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Financial Market Dealers Association and led the establishment of the FMDQ Securities Exchange, has shown the greatness in Africans to the world. In 2010, he led Access Bank as Group Managing Director to donate $1million to the Global Fund’s Gift from Africa” Project.

That corporate action was Access Bank’s strategic response to Global Fund’s call for support from African private sector in the fight against the triple pandemic threatening the socio-economic development of the continent. The donation enlisted the bank as the first African private sector company to invest in the Global Fund programme.

Just the way alphabet ‘A’ that begins his name heralds other alphabets, so does Aigboje’s name appear as a forerunner on the list of numerous firsts in Nigeria and Africa. With his election as president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange Council in 2013, he became the first African to chair two national exchange platforms. In that capacity, he championed the demutualization of the exchanges and was commended globally for the completion of the transformational initiative in 2021.

For the path he has walked since his birth on Tuesday, September 24, 1966, Aigboje has not only become exemplary and inspirational to fellow humans, but is also a national pride. As a highly patriotic Nigerian who has rendered service to the benefit of the nation, the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria conferred the national honour of the Commander of the Order of Niger (CON), the second highest honour in the country, on him.

Earlier this year in Nairobi, kenya, Aigboje who recently returned as the Chairman of Access Holdings Plc, was honoured with the prestigious African Banker Lifetime Achievement award, for his contributions to the development of the African financial services landscape, and successful transformation of Access Bank into a continental financial powerhouse with visible global presence.

At the May 2024 event in Kenya, the presentation of Aigboje’s glittering profile and remarkable achievements held an elite audience, comprising highly accomplished individuals from various walks of life and across the globe spellbound. The reactions that followed explained why his reputation as a business leader overshadowed his humongous philanthropic endeavours.

Most enthralling during the presentation was the vision of Coronation Group – a conglomerate encompassing most aspects of investing, lending, and insurance with a presence in Nigeria and other African countries, which Aigboje chairs its board.

Leading a business that seeks “To democratize wealth creation opportunities for millions in Africa” reflects the deep-seated compassion in Aigboje’s soul and business practices because we put our name where our ideals rest.

Perhaps, with Aigboje’s prosocial mindset and the quantum of his philanthropic interventions delivered through the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation and its subsidiaries – the Africa Initiative for Governance and Aig-Imoukhuede Institute, he is arguably one of Africa’s leading philanthropists.
Aside from focusing his philanthropic activities on building the next generation of Nigeria’s government leaders, he is also committed to supporting the transformation of the public sector for effectiveness and boosting access to quality healthcare. His immeasurable contributions to universal healthcare for Africans earned him a place as the first African co-chairman of GBC Health, a private sector coalition against HIV, Malaria and tuberculosis, based in New York.

Also, Aigboje leverages his regal perch as Chairman of EnterpriseNGR, a Nigerian financial and related professional services advocacy group, for meaningful social enterprise, capacity development and economic advancement of Nigeria.

Boosting extensive board experience and appointments, which include membership of the Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government International Advisory Board and the Aliko Dangote Foundation, Aigboje who holds an MBA jointly awarded by the London School of Economics, New York University a d HEC Paris, Law degrees from the University of Benin and the Nigerian Law School, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and holds honorary doctoral degree from Olabisi Onabanjo University.

Happy birthday, Aigboje. Long life and prosperity. May God continue to make life easy for you and ease the pain of the demise of your partner, Dr. Herbert Wigwe.

Fafore was Head, Public Affairs at Access Bank Plc and currently Lead Strategist at ReputationPlus Limited.