I was sitting down to interview Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede after a fairly long interregnum – my last meeting with him was a few years ago when he invited me to his pile in the English countryside and I had the privilege of meeting his charming wife, Ofovwe. We chatted then about his new ventures in business – setting up Coronation Capital, the Tengen Family Office, and the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation that he runs with his wife.
Unfortunately time was short, I was travelling that evening, and I had many questions in mind that I was unable to ask him – so when the opportunity to sit down with him again presented itself, I jumped at it. Aig is now back at the bank which he calls his favourite ‘baby’, this time as chairman of Access Holdings.
During the course of a fairly long career in journalism, I have met and interviewed hundreds of people in various occupations – a very few remain clearly etched in one’s mind and an even fewer number are what we journalists feel proprietorial towards – those that we believe, often wrongly, that we ‘discovered’, that is, interviewed before the spotlight turned its full glare towards them.
In my case, this happens to be Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede. I first met him a lifetime ago when Nigerian banking was emerging from the ruins of the earlier, virtually unregulated system – described as ‘the wild west era’. He and Herbert Wigwe, who was also an Executive Director at Guaranty Trust Bank, had bought out Access Bank, which was struggling at the shallow end of the banking industry pond in 2002.
Interestingly, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had delayed the sale because of concerns that they were ‘too young to own a bank’. He indeed looked very young. I mentioned this to him in the interview and he laughed heartily – “it’s good genes man, good genes”. Indeed, as we were all to find out over the following two decades and a half.
In that first interview, I asked him what his plans for the bank were. “To make it the number one bank in Nigeria” was the blunt response. At that point, it seemed about as credible as if he had said he wanted to open a branch on the moon.
It seems a lifetime ago – in the meantime, Access has indeed become the number one bank in Nigeria by assets and number one in Africa by customer base. Aig himself has left the runway – as related in his autobiography, Leaving the Tarmac: Buying a bank in Africa, and has never stopped flying.
I reminded him about the first interview, the success he had both as CEO of the bank and now chairman of Access Holdings among other achievements, and asked him what his focus was on now.
“When we first met, the dominant reality that I faced was an entrepreneurial one. We had basically acquired a bank using every single dime of capital I had, as well as a lot of leverage in the process. And so it had to be an entrepreneurial success story, otherwise it was kind of dead on arrival,” he said.
“But I didn’t want my story to be this – okay, he bought a bank, made a success of it, became very rich, and then, who knows what happened to the bank thereafter. Yes, entrepreneurs create businesses, but institution-builders create organisations that can endure beyond the energy, personality and presence of their founders.”
Throughout our conversation, he kept repeating the importance of institution- building to make sure the message was getting through. It was and his arguments were solid.
His conviction about the primacy of institutions, including public service institutions, is so strong that it forms a central part of his Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation and its subsidiaries, the Africa Initiative for Governance and the Aig-Imoukhuede Institute, which are focused on building Nigeria’s next generation of government leaders, helping to transform public sector effectiveness, and improving access to quality primary health care.
“Every lesson I learnt at Guaranty Trust Bank [from where he resigned as executive director in 2002 to buy out and run Access Bank] and thereafter at Access Bank was that the private sector’s progress cannot be sustained where public institutions are weak.”
Entrepreneurship, he explains, often begins with identifying an opportunity and building a successful enterprise around it. “Institution-building goes further. It requires a clear and enduring purpose; a sound governance system; strong leadership succession; a culture that survives changes in personnel; disciplined capital allocation; systems that consistently produce results; and the capacity to renew the organisation over time.”
A business may be successful, he emphasises, “because its founder is exceptional. An institution becomes successful when excellence is embedded in the organisation itself.”
The true test of an institution, he tells me, “is not how it performs when its founder is present. It is how it performs through: leadership transitions; economic cycles; regulatory changes; technological disruption and moments of crisis.
“It is these things I’ve mentioned, not the avoidance of these things that makes great institutions – it’s how well these institutions have been built to endure these problems.”
Access was never conceived merely as a bank that would become larger, he points out. “The aspiration was to build an African financial institution with the capacity to compete globally, serve millions of people and remain relevant across generations.
“It was always something larger, something about which all Africans could say, ‘Even in Africa, we have our own version of Microsoft; even in Africa (in banking terms), we have our own version of Nike. Even in Africa, we have our own version of Walmart.’ ”
The same philosophy, he says, applies to his Coronation Group.
“Every prosperous society depends upon institutions that can mobilise savings, allocate capital efficiently, manage risk, finance enterprise and preserve wealth across generations. Without such institutions, economic growth slows, businesses struggle to expand, infrastructure remains underfunded and families are unable to build lasting prosperity,” he explains.
“Africa’s long-term development will depend not only on entrepreneurship and government policy, but on the strength of the institutions that connect capital with opportunity. Coronation exists to be one of those institutions. It is being built as a long-term African investment and wealth management platform, not simply as a collection of businesses.”
It’s important to be able to renew the organisation over time, he says. “My benchmark for Africa is Standard Bank. Standard Bank is a 170-year-old organisation. Access Bank, under our stewardship, has had a 25-year journey. So I think we are still early, very early in that journey.”
Public institutions lottery
It became clear that when Aig was talking about institutions, he was not confining himself to private sector, or private institutions but also the public sector.
“One of the big things I learned in my journey up to the time I retired as CEO of Access Bank,” he reflects, “I think I told you this the first time we met. I said, many of us in the private sector in Africa, you know, are not humble enough to really acknowledge that a lot of the time our success comes as a result of government working the way it should for the people it serves, and therefore our entrepreneurial and other instincts germinate and succeed.”
But he accepts that not all public sector organisations perform to their best ability. He describes it as something of a lottery: “Do you have the right public service, public institution there when you want or need it? Or, do you have the right leader there where you want or need them?
“It’s actually such a horrible thought that my dream is dependent on a lottery – whether the rarity that the public sector institution works, or is led properly, occurs! That’s not the case in Europe, that’s not the case in Asia, that’s not the case in North America.
“We cannot have sustainable, private sector prosperity without capable, ethical and effective public institutions. The quality of Nigeria, or any other country, is ultimately going to be shaped by the quality of its institutions,” he insists. “We need stable rules, sound regulation, infrastructure, education, justice, security. We just take these things for granted, but they are often so rare in Africa.”
He says the notion that it’s a them-versus-us situation with the public sector on one side, the private sector on the other competing, is false. “We are the same national system,” he avers. The success of the one depends on the success of the other.
He gives the example of Singapore, where the public and private sectors work hand in glove to get things done efficiently and effectively.
“We have to create a national system of excellence where in a sense, the public sector part of it is even stronger than the private sector part of it. So that’s what the Foundation’s work is all about. It’s an investment in institutional capacity on the public sector side.
“Let’s look for reform-minded public servants; let’s give them leadership and technical capabilities; let’s connect them to networks of other reformers, and let’s support practical institutional change.
“The revolution, if any, will occur maybe in 20, 30 years’ time. We are beginning to achieve a lot of traction. Public servants are no longer just discussed in negative terms.”
Summarising his thoughts on institutions, he says that reform is most sustainable when it becomes embedded in processes, standards, digital systems, institutional memory and professional public-service cultures.
“Leadership development matters because policies do not execute themselves. Institutions are ultimately led and operated by people. The same principles that create strong private institutions – merit, accountability, leadership development, sound governance and disciplined execution – are also essential to effective public institutions.”
Africa’s development challenge, he says, is not simply a shortage of ideas – it is often a shortage of institutions with the capability to translate good ideas into consistent execution.
This passion for efficient public institutions is embedded in the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation, an independent non-profit that seeks to transform public service delivery across Africa. The Foundation partners with Oxford University’s School of Government to make several capacity-building initiatives for African public servants available.
Amongst these initiatives is the Aig- Imoukhuede Scholarship that sends qualified African public servants to the University of Oxford to study for a Master of Public Policy degree.
Through the Foundation and its subsidiaries, the Africa Initiative for Governance and the Aig-Imoukhuede Institute, Aig and his wife, Ofovwe, are helping to develop Nigeria’s public sector leadership and institutional capacity.
Shaking up Nigeria’s securities
Talking about reforms and revolutionary changes led naturally to his period at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, which is now called the Nigerian Exchange Limited. Soon after leaving Access – as per the CBN mandate for all top bank executives at the end of 10-year stints – he became President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2013, taking over from Aliko Dangote.
He was also founding Chairman of the FMDQ OTC Exchange – now FMDQ Group, which has evolved from an OTC market into a fully-fledged securities exchange and is now structured as a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered Capital Market Holding Company.
His arrival at the Exchange, according to his contemporaries at the institution, “really shook things up”. The old Exchange, run as a quasi-government organ, had become anachronistic and was not really fit for purpose in the modern Nigeria. Aig introduced many changes but the one that caused the biggest headlines, and considerable controversy at the time, was his decision to demutualise it.
“I saw demutualising the exchange as the game-changer. It would lead to an exchange that was much better run, an exchange that understood the demands of the markets itself and had no choice but to meet those demands because of course, you’re operating in a private sector, with a shareholder-led mindset.”
But getting agreement was difficult. “When I said I was going to go for it, all the past presidents prayed for me and wished me luck because some had started it and then [had to] run away from it.
“Demutualisation is not an easy thing to do – but I understood the impact it would have and I was very, very much vested in it. And I pushed, pushed, pushed as I tend to do, and formed a coalition around this idea.
“It wasn’t easy, and in fact, we didn’t get to the Promised Land during my tenure as President. It was my successor who actually entered the Promised Land, almost like Moses, but at least I was alive to see it,” he says with a smile.
In 2021, the demutualisation of the NSE was initiated, which led to the emergence of the Nigerian Exchange Group Plc and three subsidiaries – Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX Regulation Limited and NGX Real Estate Limited.
Speaking at the demutualisation event, the Chairman of the Nigerian Exchange Group, Otunba Abimbola Ogunbanjo paid fulsome tribute to Aig “for his exemplary stewardship. The transformational groundwork he laid made it easier to succeed him as Council President and avidly pursue the vision to build a world-class exchange.”
Despite a workload that would break most backs, Aig has taken every opportunity to lead whenever he feels he can contribute to the general wellbeing of the country or the industry.
For example, he is Chairman of EnterpriseNGR, a member-led private sector group, promoting an enabling policy environment for the growth and competitiveness of Nigeria’s Financial and Professional Services (FPS) sector, which is working with Lagos State to establish the Lagos International Finance Centre, and he collaborated with the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to digitalise work processes and public service delivery.
In 2011, Aig invited me to join him in New York, where he had been appointed co-Chairman of GBCHealth, a powerful global organisation dedicated to mobilising business for a healthier world.
He was the first African to be appointed to this role. But his appointment also marked a major shift for the body, from fighting major infectious disease pandemics to a wider agenda on strategic public health challenges around the world.
This showed me yet another side of Aig – his deep concern over major social issues and the desire to find solutions. He went about his new role with characteristic energy, planning and execution.
The year earlier, he had launched the Gift from Africa campaign, a first-of-its-kind initiative among African businesses which raised millions of dollars from African corporations in support of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.
He is currently the chairman of ABCHealth, a regional non-profit established by the Aliko Dangote Foundation and GBCHealth. He is also a director of the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria and in 2019, Aigboje initiated the Adopt-A-Healthcare-Facility Programme.
He is also the vice chairman of Global Citizen Nigeria and through a partnership with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Fund, has created the Nigerian Solidarity Support Fund.
Making capital work
I met him again several years later when he was no longer CEO of Access Bank, having retired in 2013, as required by the CBN. He invited me to his home in a very exclusive country area in the UK. He looked just as youthful as when I had last seen him and I chatted with him and his charming wife about his activities, which had already been plentiful.
After retiring from Access Bank, he had founded Coronation Capital Limited in 2015 to manage proprietary investments across banking, insurance, technology, real estate, and energy.
He had also founded Tengen Family Office in 2017. Initially managing wealth originating from Access Bank founders Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede and the late Herbert Wigwe. This International Family Office still retains its Lagos headquarters.
Back to the present, and I ask him how his own companies and organisations are doing in the current, often tempestuous international climate and amidst the damaging squeeze on capital that many of our countries are going through.
“It started with Coronation Capital, but it was never the end. And Coronation Capital is essentially what I would call private capital within an integrated platform that allows you to serve the needs of Nigeria and Africa, as far as wealth creation is concerned.
“One of the problems as far as the development of Africa is concerned, is that Africa needs more long-term capital. But we are unable to reduce, or we have not been able to reduce, the uncertainty, fragmentation and institutional weaknesses that make capital unnecessarily expensive in Africa.
“In a sense, the entire Coronation platform is meant to solve this fundamental problem. In fact, it is a recurring question raised by owners of the largest businesses in Nigeria.
“But until recently, we didn’t have institutions like Coronation that can structure and have the credibility and capacity to make something like this happen.”
He argues: “If we have several institutions in Africa that have the respect that BlackRock has commanded and built in just 25 years, we will address this issue of the cost of capital.
“We are the flag-bearer, so to speak, of this new direction where, yes, we’ve built great commercial banks. Now we have to build great capital markets, investment management and insurance businesses. And that’s what Coronation is about.”
I raise the issue now doing the rounds that in fact, Africa has billions of dollars of capital locked up in pension, insurance, sovereign wealth and central bank funds, and wondered how these can be mobilised for essential development.
“We are very poor in channelling savings to investment,” he says, and explains that the problem is usually a lack of capacity to plan, execute and finalise projects. “Once we build that capacity, it will then enable us to develop more investable projects; projects that are backed by proper feasibility studies, transparent procurement, credible cash flows, and competent sponsors.
“And we don’t want it to be episodic. We don’t want one Dangote refinery every 10 years. We want four Dangote refinery- type projects in Nigeria every two years. And then not just in Nigeria but in 25 countries across Africa simultaneously.”
Talking of long-haul investments, he pays tribute to development finance institutions like Afreximbank and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). “They have been fantastic, and they are indispensable for now, because they have provided capital where the private sector system has just been unable to.
“We are so dependent on them and that is why their Preferred Creditor Status must be respected and protected. Because the cost of a weaker Afreximbank or a weaker AFC is much higher and larger than you can imagine. Because if that happens, forget the Dangote refineries. They just won’t happen.”
But he cautions, “We cannot continue this chronic dependence on the African development institution in the long term. However, for now, development in Africa would be much slower without them.”
I circle back to Access Holdings, which he now chairs, and ask what is meant by the motto: ‘From Scale to Value’?
“We spent 25 years, as you said, building one of Africa’s most geographically diverse financial services platform. We serve more than 20 markets, maybe 60m-plus customers, and total assets in naira in excess of 50trn. But size was never the final objective.
“So when we say ‘Scale to Value’, we are now moving away from measuring success in terms of assets, geographical presence, customer numbers, and we are placing emphasis on return on equity, quality and resilience of earnings, cost efficiency, capital productivity – basically, sustainable shareholder distributions and performance.
“Last year we achieved profit before tax of over 1trn naira, which is very, very high, about $750m. Now, what I want our shareholders and the entirety of the world to believe is that the platform will deliver these earnings on a repeatable basis.”
The leadership issue
As we begin to wind down our conversation, I mention the oft-repeated phrase that ‘This is Africa’s century’ and ask him for his take.
“Africa’s potential is real, but potential is not the destination. When we talk about the continent’s demographics for example, the opportunity is not a dividend. It will become a dividend if it is matched by education, institutions, productive investment and execution. So yes, we have several extraordinary advantages that are relevant to the 21st century reality.”
He sees technology as perhaps one of Africa’s greatest enablers. “Most of the wealth that we speak of that has been built over the last 30 years, across the world, has its roots one way or the other in technological advancement. I think that Africa must become a creator of technology, not merely a consumer of technology. What technology has shown is that we don’t actually need to repeat every stage of development. So we don’t necessarily need to take the 100 years or so it took Southeast Asia to advance.
“Mobile technology and digital finance have shown that Africa has the ability to leapfrog if it takes advantage of what technology holds for it.”
What about the quality leadership, political or otherwise, that is so often lacking in Africa? What is its impact on the continent’s progress?
“The only way this cycle will be broken is by building institutions that are stronger than individual political actors. Africa will still depend on the Messiah-type story – ‘Let’s elect this person and all things will follow.’ But when I say depend on, I mean, just as a crutch – the religion is the opium of the masses thing. But really, we’re not going to break that cycle with the Messiah leader.
“Once we have justice, once we have competent administration, once we have economic opportunity, then it will lead to public confidence and things will change.
“This can become Africa’s century, but only if Africa is ready to replace this language of potential. It must come to us when we focus on execution by literally everybody – from the person who drives a taxi to the person whose signature can give a mineral right.”
What advice would he give to Africa’s new generation of leaders? “I think they have to read, and read deeply. I think the focus and emphasis has to be not on charisma, but on character. They have to be very curious about the things they don’t know and not double down on the things they know.
“They have to have the humility that enables lifelong learning, that is a given. Legacy is not what people remember about you. It is what continues because of you. I like to spend my time not thinking of planting trees that will provide me shade, but about the people who will sit under the shade of those trees long after I’ve gone. And finally, you know, every generation borrows the future from the next.
“I have increasingly come to believe that the most consequential work a leader can do is to create institutions that continue to serve society long after that leader has left the stage.”
To conclude the interview, he reiterates: “I believe that Africa’s transformation will ultimately depend on our ability to build institutions that combine purpose, competence, governance, and the capacity to endure. This is what every other nation has done, and this is what we have not been able to do.”