Life And People
Herbert Wigwe: Death Is Full Of Hubris -By Ike Willie-Nwobu
Herbert Wigwe’s death alongside his wife Chioma, his son, Chizi his bossom friend and three others is a national tragedy, a cruel blow delivered to the gut of a country reeling from similar blows. If he had died in Nigeria, people would have invoked the ‘village people’ phenomenon to explain his tragic death for in Nigeria, when a man dies from unnatural causes at the prime of his life, the death is put down to the diabolical.
A helicopter crash, a fire and just like that six lives incinerated, six precious shiny pearls reduced to cold, nondescript ash. Death is full of hubris. The bible says that it is appointed unto man to die, but one would think that the Grim Reaper ought to show more respect for time and circumstance, even for treasures and champions. But Alas, it has no respect, provides only fleeting respite.
Herbert Wigwe’s death may still be shrouded in sketchy details, but before that ill-fated helicopter crash near the California-Nevada border in far away United States, the name ‘Wigwe’ long synonymous with Nigeria’s banking industry was well on its way to becoming synonymous with higher education as well. The Wigwe University in Isiokpo, Rivers State, where the late banker hailed from, had a $500 million fund for its takeoff, along with a personal promise to make it Africa’s premier institution of higher learning. Herbert Wigwe was not a politician. He had no known interests in political office. His pledge to his kinsmen and Nigerians to make Wigwe University the cynosure of all eyes would have been outlandish, outrageous and bogus all at once but for the fact that it was coming from a man who is arguably Nigeria’s chief dreamer, very much in the mold of the biblical Joseph, a man for whom dreams come true.
In 2002, together with his bossom friend AigbojeAigImoukhuede he acquired Access Bank which was one of the smallest of Nigeria’s eighty-nine banks. The challenge was formidable and the promise paltry, but Wigwe still managed together with his business partner to turn the bank into Nigeria’s biggest by assets which today carters to the financial services’ needs of 6.5 million people in Africa, and is a prominent fixture in the top 500 global banks.
Herbert Wigwe’s death alongside his wife Chioma, his son, Chizi his bossom friend and three others is a national tragedy, a cruel blow delivered to the gut of a country reeling from similar blows. If he had died in Nigeria, people would have invoked the ‘village people’ phenomenon to explain his tragic death for in Nigeria, when a man dies from unnatural causes at the prime of his life, the death is put down to the diabolical.
The Group Managing Director/ CEO of Access Holdings PLC the company behind Access Bank sat on the board of many prestigious organizations and was consumed by his compassion for the less-privileged. His explosive philanthropy was only matched by his searing intellect and his prodigious business acumen. His dreams towered far above the man he was, and he was able to use his privileged position in life to help others.
Nigeria continues to lose some of its best minds in tragic circumstances. It has been a year of deaths already. Death ushered Nigeria into the new year, and death has so far been its chief escort. Insecurity sweeps through the country like a deadly plague. The second week of the month is just about its halfway line, but already Nigeria is counting its dead in their number.
Is the country dying? Are the deaths of some of Nigeria’s most promising minds reflective of a dying country? Perhaps so. Life is especially difficult in Nigeria these days. The protests that simultaneously broke out in some major Nigerian cities over the cost of living should have perhaps come sooner, as hunger is not the country’s biggest problem currently. That should be insecurity.
Since gunmen broke into multiple communities in Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi Local Government Areas of the country and mauled down hundreds of people two days before Christmas, a fresh round of killings and kidnapping has broken out in different parts of the country, including Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, as if to undermine the new government. On its part, the new government has appeared dazed by the early challenges. But it cannot be surprised by what is happening in the country because Nigeria reached boiling point a long time ago.
Wigwe did not die in the country or even at the hands of Nigeria’s illicit actors. What Nigerians know is that his helicopter crashed in the US, claiming his life, his wife, son, and three other precious lives. It is an imponderable tragedy for his three remaining children who have suddenly been thrust into orphanhood, and his many friends. But survive they must.
Death is full of hubris. It claims who it wants, when it wants and how it wants. It pays no heed to class or clout, wealth or work. It is a dictator, and it usually snatches people only on its terms.
Every day in Nigeria, an inordinate number of people face death. Death stares them in the eye, but they stare right back without flinching until intimidated, death retreats to wait for a more opportune time.
Nigerians may not be used to living well, but they are used to defying death even if every now, and then it succeeds in snatching their best.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
