By Abuchi Obiora
Like a Colossus, he bestrode the Nigerian financial scape making waves and searching out more opportunities all of which he diligently explored till he built a financial empire of unparalleled strength in the anal of the Nigerian financial history.
His name was Dr. Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe. He was born on 15th August, 1966 of aristocratic parentage in the home of Mr. Shyngle and Stella Wigwe in Isiokpo town, Rivers State of Nigeria. He died on 9th February, 2024 with his wife Chizoba, his first son Chizi, and his bossom friend Abimbola Ogunbanjo in a helicopter crash near Nevada borders in California, United States of America.
He founded what became Access Holdings Plc. in which he was the group Chief Executive Officer until his death. His career-minded friend, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede co-founded the bank with him in 2006.
During one of the ‘mergers and acquisition’ organized by the Central Bank of Nigeria, Herbert and Aigboje approached the apex bank to acquire Access Bank. They were in their middle thirties. The apex bank told them that they were too young to own a bank but when the duo confronted the apex bank with their plan to restore the confidence of the erstwhile shareholders of the bank and put the bank back to the path of growth, the apex bank obliged them and sold Access Bank to them.
When Herbert and Aigboje acquired Access Bank at 35 and 36 years old respectively, the bank was ranked number 65 out of the then existing banks in Nigeria. Aigboje took over the bank immediately which he managed for three years and was to enact the foundation upon which Herbert continued to develop the bank. By the time Herbert had finished with the bank, the bank had been rated number one in assets and capital base above all other banks in Nigeria.
By this time, Herbert had become the highest single shareholder in Access Bank with 9% shareholding which had a capital market price of $54m on the day he died. He had several hundreds of millions of dollars of investments scattered around the many organizations operating under the umbrella of Access Holding Plc, a strong conglomerate which he was the Group Chief Executive Officer until his death.
A philanthropist and an unrepentant giver and benefactor to many people, Herbert was a good and dedicated Christian who invested much in the vine yard of God and in Christian evangelism. His love for the people made him to establish a world class University in his home town, Isiokpo, Rivers State. Herbert was involved in more other philanthropic activities than can be mentioned here.
By dying now, Herbert broke our hearts, but what can we say or do? With the death of Herbie (as he was fondly called by close friends and associates), Chizoba his wife from Achina town, a neighbouring town to my hometown and the town of my paternal grandmother Jibuaku, and their son, Chizi, Achina town has lost a special son-in-law, (‘oke ogo’, ‘ogo teghete’), a precious and reliable daughter, Chizoba (ada eji eje mba’) and a budding and aspiring great ‘nwadiala’ Chizi Herbert’s son. May their souls rest in Peace Profound. So Mote It Be!
Why are Nigerians much pained by the sudden death of Herbert, his wife and his heir-apparent? We shall find this out in this discourse but let us first ask: has there been any plane crash either in Nigeria or elsewhere where lives were lost? Yes of course, there were and some of these plane crashes were suspected to have been staged-managed.
This is actually the main purpose of this discourse and I must say that I owe nobody any apology by putting down in black and white, the subdued and silent opinions of many Nigerians, which opinions for now are expressed in whispers.
At 11:13am in the morning of November 28, 1983, Dr. Offia Nwali, a former commissioner in old East Central State lost his entire family comprising his wife and four children in a Nigerian Airway local flight 250 which took off in Lagos and was to touch down in Enugu.
Dr. Offia Nwali, a former Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the first Nigerian, most probably African to have gotten a PhD in Computer Analytics did not survive that onslaught suspected to have been master-minded by close associates and colleagues who were determined to permanently decapitate him. His corpse was discovered in a pond at the back of his country home one weekend in 2016 after living a long life of depression since 1983.
There have been other air crashes in Nigeria in that manner which may suggest that something sinister may have necessitated the death of Herbert and his companions in the ill-fated helicopter. These air crashes include:
- The Hercules C130 Military plane air crash in Nigeria on September 28, 1992 where 163 Nigerians mostly military officers died.
- Death in a police helicopter of a former DIG in the Nigerian Police, John Haruna who as a CP in Kaduna State dealt ruthlessly with sponsored miscreants who caused mischief in the state. DIG John Haruna died on his short trip to Jos. The helicopter blew up shortly after taking off.
- Yakowa, the embattled Christian Governor of Kaduna State travelled with General Aziza, the then National Security Adviser, to a village in Bayelsa State for the burial of the father of Oronto Douglas.
Their Police helicopter blew up shortly after taking off for the return journey. They all died in the crash.
- General Attahiru, one Military Officer who dared to fight Boko Haram to a standstill when he was the Chief of Army Staff was also blown up in an aircraft by people who obviously benefitted by the operations of the Boko Haram insurgents.
All these air crashes listed above were to achieve some set objectives by those who planned them. Is it possible, therefore, that Dr. Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe, his wife Chizoba, his son and heir-apparent Chizi, were made to pay the supreme sacrifice as a result of boardroom politics bordering on majority shareholding and its positive consequences of take-over of management of Access Holdings Plc, and calling the shots in the wealthy group and financial conglomerate whose financial tentacles are spread around the world?
Family, friends, colleagues and the international business community where Dr. Herbert Wigwe played very conspicuous roles must continue to ask this question till an admissible answer is provided by both the management of Access Holdings Plc, and the investigating authorities in America where the helicopter crash took place.
But before they do that, let us consider a few things. As an adult with very wide and varied experience having also understood different cultural perspectives of the concept of divinity, I understand that God is not wicked. Unless people deliberately walk themselves into problems, most evil things that happen to people are caused by wicked men who see themselves in competitive disadvantage to the people they eventually destroy.
This brings us to the second consideration in this discourse. This second consideration is ‘The Power of The Sixth Element’ a subheading borrowed from the title of one of my books. In creation, the world has identified only five basic elements. These elements are Fire, Water, Earth, Air and the Elementary Spirit, that is, the intangible yet subtle supernatural power (called different names by different cultures, religions and traditions) that bind the four elements in different quantum and quantities delineated in vibrations to firm up all empirical things known to man.
But there is a sixth, and very important element that specially rule the earth. This Sixth Element is indispensable. This time, it is not created by God but created by man. It has overtime, become the most successful creation of man with unlimited possibilities in-built in it. This Sixth Element has the power of binding the five other elements together but also commands the absolute power to put value to any of the five elements. The Sixth Element also has the capacity to set any of the five elements to tasks, irrespective of the costs of such tasks.
What is the Sixth Element? Money! Money is the Sixth Element in all creation, which having a limitless value for and by itself as it is capable of putting values to itself, puts values to anything and everything that exists, including life.
Could it be possible that The Sixth Element played a vital role in the death of Dr. Herbert Wigwe, his wife, and his son? Yes, of course. Let us take some case studies in order to find out how this could be.
The Jennifer Project is the thrilling, stranger than fiction CIA operation which involved the elaborate financing, planning and successful execution of one of the most amazing intelligence coups in the history of espionage by the CIA. It was initiated as a result of the sinking of a top secret Russian ‘G’ Class nuclear-capability submarine which left from her berth and sailed into the Pacific Ocean. Blowing up on a cold, grey day in 1968 after a series of internal explosions in deep waters in a depth of some 17,500 feet, the wreckage was seen by the CIA as a gold mine to sniff out the technological development of the Russian war scientists during the American and Russian cold war era.
The explosion was detected by some high-tech supersonic American underwater monitors which relayed the information to the CIA headquarters. The Jennifer Project was therefore planned by the CIA to raise some 3,000 ton multi-purpose submarine stuck in deep waters to sniff out some vital and sensitive/classified information about Russia war technology by America to step up the later’s game in their war scheming.
As everything hidden on the earth must be revealed in a matter of time in the manner all secrets surrounding the death of Dr. Herbert Wigwe must be thrown open, the officially-concealed Jennifer Project was later ‘decoded’ and made available to the public by the efforts of seasoned investigative journalists. Details of this CIA espionage operation were later published in a book written by Clyde W. Burleson, in 1977, with the title, “The Jennifer Project”.
Ten years after the Jennifer Project, that is, in 1978 another uncommon incidence secretly planned with astonishing details beyond the core execution part up to scheduled damage-control measures should the treachery bursts open before its implementation, was hatched and unfolded in a most unusual place in the world. That most unusual location of the world is the Vatican City.
The incidence was the death of Pope John Paul I. Born Albino Luciani in Canale d’ Agordo in Italy on 17th October 1912, Pope John Paul I, elected Pontiff on 26th August 1978, articulated many measures thought to be too revolutionary by the traditionalists in the Church of Rome. Exactly thirty three days later on 28th September 1978, he died.
Again, since nothing that concerns human beings may not be hidden indefinitely under the sun as the earth tarries, David A. Yallop, a British author picked up fragments of information and ‘leads’ that led him to an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death of the Pope. The result of the long-stretched and strenuous, very risky investigation of the death of Pope John Paul I by David A. Yallop was published in the book titled “In God’s Name” during the summer of 1984 by Bantam Books.
The book, well detailed, suggested and actually proved with closed-up details that Pope John Paul I was murdered because the Vatican commented severally on it as the world stood aghast but it never denied the involvement of its key officers including Cardinals and highly placed Priests around the world, in the activities detailed by David A. Yallop.
Like in the Jennifer Project, there was this factor of competition and backbiting of the cold war era in the suspected murder of Pope John Paul I. David A. Yallop was said to have been assisted by the KGB (Komitet Gosu-Darstvennoy Bezopasnosti – Committee for State Security) in order to expose the involvement of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and the MOSSAD (A Hebrew abbreviation which fully interpreted in English Language means (Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations) in the activities leading to the death of Pope John Paul I. All these were during the ‘cold war’ era when the United States and Russia stood on the exact opposite sides of the two divides fighting for political, economic and military supremacy over each other.
In a more recent case which seem to have the semblance of the mysterious death in a helicopter crash of Dr. Herbert Wigwe, Mr. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Chief of Wagner Group, a Private Military Company (PMC) funded by Russia was blown into shreds in a helicopter crash. The death of Yevgeny Prigozhin came, not with any surprise for international observers, shortly after the man had policy issue problems with his sponsor and benefactor, Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia. But Putin said that he had ‘forgiven’ him of his trespasses before the man’s death.
Though planned and executed to remain secrets, the Jennifer Project and the murder of Pope John Paul I did not in the long run escape people’s scrutiny and knowledge. Though these heinous activities were quietly guarded, shrouded in mystery and packed in secrecy, sometimes with threats to the lives of those people who dare ‘poke nose’, nevertheless, they both came into the open.
Did Dr. Herbert Wigwe make enemies along the years of his career in banking? It is not unlikely that he would have made many enemies on his climb to the stardom of Nigeria’s biggest financial empire. While his climb to stardom went on, there must have been friends and colleagues displaced who may have bounced back with a change in government.
There may also have arisen, new alliances and group interest sharing formula where people now in government who hitherto may have made their wealth in illegitimate ways may seize the opportunity of their presence in government to take over legitimate businesses through some suave boardroom maneuvers. This happened in some Latin American countries including Cambodia.
The third item in this discourse which I will briefly want to discuss is ‘Decapitation Technique’. The English Language word ‘decapitate’ means to “cut the head off, especially a person or an animal” (Advanced Leaner’s Dictionary, Special Price Edition).
Another dictionary defines ‘Decapitation’ as “the act of beheading” ‘Decapitation’ as an English word is also widely applied as a figure of speech or expression in situations and conditions where the source of anything, the fountain of a flowing spring, symbolizing the ‘head’ is severely cut off (especially in covert operations of intelligence/espionage agencies) so that the situation or condition collapses or gives way to something different, in the same manner the body collapses when the head is cut off or severed.
The Technique of Decapitation is the DEVILS ALTERNATIVE in solving seemingly knotty and stubborn problems. At least, this is what the present Machiavellian set of politicians and business men around the world believe. It is possible that the Russian state applied Decapitation Technique to salvage her huge investments in Wagner Group from the tough grip of the now recalcitrant Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a helicopter crash. In the Russian event as it was in The Jennifer Project and the murder of Pope John Paul I, and most likely in the death in helicopter crash of Dr. Herbert Wigwe, his wife and his son, The Sixth Element, money was most probably in incontestable contest.
Is it therefore possible that there could be a hatched-out plan to prey on Dr. Herbert Wigwe’s business interests for which reason a total decapitation that ensured his death, the death of his wife, and the death of his heir-apparent, must be applied?
Boardroom politics has always been made easy when friends and tribesmen or spiritual colleagues as happened in the case of the murder of Pope John Paul I (where some misguided local Masonic Lodges were fingered) are in the government? No wonder corporations and multinationals all over the world strive very hard to be in the good books of incumbent governments in their countries of operation. The pristine wisdom of Alexandrian period of active engagement through compliance to the law of common interest, though selfish it may be, was as benefitting to the man, Alexander the Great who applied it to win all Eurasia as it is today in corporate boardrooms for people who apply it to corner majority shareholding in the companies or groups they seek to conquer.
Talking about active engagement through compliance to the law of common interest, any of the groups earlier mentioned, (the CIA, the KGB, and the MOSSAD), in response to the limitless power of The Sixth Element have the capacity to be involved as they were in the cases examined, in any high profile incidence as the helicopter crash in which Dr. Herbert Wigwe died.
There is no doubt that accidents do happen, but there are pertinent questions all of which beg for answers. Why was the helicopter in which Nigeria’s most active player in the financial industry was to be flown not fitted with a flight recorder and other necessary equipment to navigate inclement weather? What really went wrong? Who was in charge of booking the services of the company that provided the helicopter. Is it the Personal Assistant to Dr. Herbert Wigwe who did not after all travel with the helicopter, preferring to make such a long distant journey (as he said!) in America by road?. We must continue to ask questions, questions and more questions, till America, who we hold liable for the death of one of our most illustrious sons, provide answers to these questions.
There have been many instances in history where the state-sponsored organizations mentioned earlier in this discourse have been used to ‘take out’ a person, anybody suspected to be standing on the way of some huge interests as may be defined by The Sixth Element. Like I said before, this process can be achieved through identification of common interest and deployment of active engagement. If any reader is in doubt, he/she should read the books “Confessions of An Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins and “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, by Walter Rodney.
While John Perkins was lucky to be alive to tell us his stories because he was wise and patient enough to wait for the expiration of the Official Secret Act in America as required of a former CIA agent to tell his stories, Walter Rodney who was bombed out of life with a time bomb concealed in the electronic communication gadget delivered to him by an official of one of the secret agents earlier mentioned, did not live further to see how presently Africa is working very hard to redevelop itself after the ruins of underdevelopment of her by Europe.
Somehow, death in air crashes (which could be as a result of bomb explosions) and any other means possible including conventional and well-directed bomb mines have become THE DEVIL’S ALTERNATIVE to sort out boardroom disagreements and differing opinions in company or government policy issues.
As I get close to ending this discourse, I must say that I am a protagonist of locating source and masterminds of crime through identifying the short term and longtime beneficiaries’ to that crime, even if these distant beneficiaries initial appearance in business are through the unwholesome channel of proxies.
For this reason, the nature and direction of events that are sure to unfold within the Nigerian financial circle especially as they may affect the consolidated interests of Dr. Herbert Wigwe and his immediate family among whom two of the most important figures, Chizoba and her son Chizi are dead, will either take the breathe out of the many stories that are flying around the world regarding Herbert’s death, or give credence to the suspicion that Herbert died as a result of dangerous and ruthless power play and boardroom chess-like game of interest maneuver tenaciously planned and perfectly executed by a new set of investors facilitated by sitting docks, who desire to call the shots in the areas where Herbert outshined his compatriots.
In this regard, I will believe that using the smart lead of tracing a source of crime through beneficiaries to the crime will unravel the circumstances surrounding the death in a helicopter of Dr. Herbert Wigwe. This method by the way, was what David A. Yallop used to remotely trace and eventually arrived at the conclusion that Pope John Paul I was murdered.
Most probably for the reason of bridging the gap which the death of Herbert created in the day to day running of the group, Access Holding Plc announced a new Group Chief Executive Officer in the person of Ms Bolaji Agbede, just five days after the death of their founding Group Chief Executive Officer. That announcement threw some moral questions depending on what anybody may think but I see that in a different light than many people see it. Why is anybody in a hurry to announce the taking-over of office by a new GCEO when the last word has not been heard as to the cause of death of a former GCEO? By the time the new GCEO was announced, investigations into the cause of air crash was still on-going. Well, this development also serves as an important lead in unraveling the story of why Herbert died because even without announcing a name, somebody, whosoever he or she maybe, should quietly have been working in the stead of the deceased GCEO, without the group telling the public the name of the person. This measure should have worked as a sign of respect and honour to the man who paved the way for others to follow.
I understand that the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that preliminary investigation to the crash pointed to rainy and wintry weather as possible causes of the crash. That raises another question. The question is: it is possible that the pilot of the helicopter even as he is supposed to be proficient in his job, did not understand like the Personal Assistant to Dr. Herbert Wigwe did understand, that the weather was inclement for the journey they were about to embark on? Maybe, the Personal Assistant, a Nigerian, knew more than the pilot, obviously an American pilot who was to be on the wheels knew. My inquiries of the weather in that Nevada border area in California, United States confirms that the place is a disaster area during winter.
Unfortunately, nobody as we were told, survived that ghastly air crash. Or did anybody survive it without our knowledge? Most unfortunately, the only person we can rely on to tell us what happened before the helicopter crashed and killed our in-law, our sister and our son who was already preparing to take over from his father, is the same man, our in-law’s Personal Assistant who goes by the name FALEYE OLUSHOLA who most probably after arranging his boss’s ill-fated trip as a Personal Assistant should do DECIDED NOT TO FLY WITH THE HELICOPTER THAT CRASHED AND KILLED OUR IN-LAW, HIS WIFE AND SON, BEFORE GETTING TO IT’S DESTINATION!.
ABUCHI OBIORA
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