Late banker Herbert Wigwe’s university faces deep struggles

Herbert Wigwe would have turned 60 on Saturday. His family, friends and former colleagues marked the day with tributes describing the institutions he built, among them the university he considered his most ambitious project.

That university has about 300 students. Wigwe told Bloomberg in November 2023 that it would open with 1,400.

The banker died in a helicopter crash near Nipton, California, on Feb. 9, 2024, alongside his wife Chizoba and their son Chizi. He was 57. Wigwe University opened its doors eight months later.

Professor Marwan Al-Akaidi, the vice-chancellor, told ThisDay in July that about 300 students are enrolled across 21 degree programmes in four colleges covering engineering, science and computing, management and social sciences, and arts. The figure is roughly 21 percent of the first-year target its founder set, according to Billionaires.Africa calculations.

Wigwe had projected 10,000 students within five years, said 30 percent of teaching staff would be recruited from Britain and the United States, and put the capital requirement at up to $500 million over the same period.

Staff dispute

Al-Akaidi was speaking to reject reports that the university had dismissed staff in large numbers.

He said the claims were false and misleading, that only two or three staff members left last year after due process, and that no employee had been terminated this year. The separations were based on performance and followed established disciplinary procedures, he said.

“Our founder, the late Herbert Wigwe, set out to build one of the finest universities in Africa,” Al-Akaidi said. “Though he passed away over two years ago, our Governing Council, Board of Trustees, and management team remain deeply committed to fulfilling that vision. Our pace is fast and our standards are high.”

Former employees told Legit.ng last month that they were dismissed without due process, intimidated and subjected to administrative high-handedness.

Dr. Nonyelum Okechukwu, the university’s librarian since November 2023, said she arrived at work on Aug. 1, 2025 to find a termination letter waiting.

“I came to work on August 1, 2025, and they served me a letter saying they were giving me notice to stop working and that my appointment would be terminated on October 30, 2025,” she said, adding that she was never called before a disciplinary panel.

The university strongly disputes the allegations and says its operations remain guided by fairness and professionalism.

Management also postponed the start of the 2025-26 session. It announced in September last year that the resumption date already given to freshmen had been put back, and later set it for Nov. 26.

Fees and scholarships

Wigwe projected tuition of roughly $12,500 a year plus ₦3.5 million, against about $500 at Nigerian public universities.

Full tuition at the cheapest college, arts, stands at ₦9.6 million. Few students pay it. The university runs a scholarship ladder tied to results in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, and it runs in the opposite direction to the sticker price.

Students scoring 300 or above receive a Founder’s Scholarship worth 60 percent off, bringing arts tuition to ₦3.84 million. Scores of 250 to 299 attract a 50 percent discount, 220 to 249 a 40 percent discount and 180 to 219 a 30 percent discount. Only students scoring 150 to 179 pay full price.

Accommodation is charged separately, at ₦3 million a session for a premium room, ₦2 million for Classic 1 and ₦1.6 million for Classic 2. An arts student on the top scholarship in a premium room faces ₦6.84 million before living costs.

What Wigwe built

The institution sits at Isiokpo in the Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State, his home area, and was established through the Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe Foundation. The National Universities Commission licensed it in 2023, operations began in August 2024 and the pioneer class was admitted on Oct. 17 that year.

Wigwe intended to teach and mentor there himself and said he would bring in figures including Aliko Dangote. He argued the institution did not need centuries or vast resources to match American and British universities, pointing to India’s output of software developers from single campuses, and built the model around technology and hybrid delivery.

He began his career at Coopers & Lybrand, spent more than a decade at Guaranty Trust Bank managing portfolios across financial institutions, large corporates and multinationals, and left as an executive director. He joined Access Bank in March 2002 as deputy managing director alongside Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, when it ranked among the smallest lenders in Nigeria, and the two built it into a group operating across more than a dozen African markets. He was serving as group chief executive of Access Holdings when he died.

His philanthropy extended to educational support for disadvantaged children, programmes in Makoko and for Almajiri children, medical scholarships and specialist oncology training, alongside work with UNICEF in northern Nigeria. The Fearless Leadership Series and the Wigwe Venture Lab continue.

Aig-Imoukhuede returned to the Access Holdings chairmanship after the crash and holds 9.37 percent of the company. Wale Tinubu, group chief executive of Oando, published a tribute this weekend.

The estate has drawn litigation. Pastor Shyngle Wigwe, his father, and Christian Wigwe, his cousin, applied to the Lagos State High Court Family and Probate Division at Ikeja to appoint interim administrators. The court dismissed the application.

Neither the university nor the family has published figures for how much of the projected $500 million has been committed, or given a revised timetable for the 10,000-student target.