Access Bank MD, Herbert Wigwe’s Love for the Art World

Having a passion that is unrelated to the need for survival and sustenance is a good thing. The average person cannot countenance the value of such passions and habits, but visionaries can relate. For Access Bank’s boss Herbert Wigwe, needless to say, such a passion is divorced from his well-known aspiration to take over the world of banking everywhere. But he has it. This passion is art and art collection, something shared by the brightest minds that ever lived.

Wigwe stands at the peak of artwork collectors in Nigeria. He does not only favour foreign art but also indigenous creations. His offices in Lagos, Nigeria, and Cape Town, South Africa, are said to be alive and resplendent with works of art that titillate the enlightened mind to no end.

You would think that someone of Wigwe’s standing would be unreservedly committed to poring over financial blueprints and investment portfolios. Not Wigwe. The Access Bank CEO has made it known time and again that artworks strike a deep chord in him, leaving him with impressions that eventually become inspirations, thereby empowering him to see the world differently. Wigwe has also made references to the historical and cultural values of these artworks, helping him know a bit more about the real world.

According to sources, Wigwe inherited his passion for gazing at and collecting special and rare artworks from his father, Pastor Shyngle Wigwe. Nevertheless, he has come to admire and adore art pieces for what they are, divine creations of other people such as Ben Enwonwu whose work Wigwe reportedly venerates to no end.

Despite the seeming exclusivity of Wigwe’s passion, there’s no question that it makes him more humane and relatable. After all, if all he did was sip coffee in the morning and then devise plans to take over a bank in China, Russia, the US, or any other world power, he would be a monster of a man, unreachable and untouchable. But if he draws inspiration from art, then Wigwe is one of us. Still a peerless genius, but one of us.