Personal and Technical Assistant to the Late Access Bank CEO, Herbert Wigwe, has opened up in public for the first time about their last moment together before the December helicopter crash that killed the banker, wife and son.
Narrating how he missed being killed along with his boss and other casualties, Olusola Faleye said that the late banking icon had agreed with his suggestion to travel with the luggage by road rather than the chopper that later crashed in the US.
Faleye gave the narrative while mourning and eulogising Wigwe at the Night of Tributes on Wednesday night in Lagos.
The unfortunate journey took the life of Wigwe, his wife, son, and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, former Chairman of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Faleye said, “Five of us embarked on that journey. I remember Mr Bimbo chatted me and said he wants to come with us, it was a Tuesday. And I told him my boss’s journey is not always straightforward. Sometimes, you can get in the air and divert somewhere else, and he said he was going to wait.
“I said he was still going to Abuja that day, and maybe he’ll be leaving later in the midnight and he said he was going to wait.
“I still tried to let him understand that we will be in London Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, he said he will stay in his house and wait. I really don’t know why I was trying to convince him not, I don’t know, and we all went on the journey.
“We flew from London to Palm Springs. I remember, in the middle of the air, I walked up to him. I said sir, how comfortable are you flying chopper at night? I’ve never done it before. And he said a word, he said, This is America, they have navigation systems for flying chopper at night, and I went back to my seat.”
Faleye then said that on the way to the second destination, there were two vehicles waiting for them, one to accompany them to the chopper, and one to take their luggage to be sent eventually as the luggage could not go in the chopper.
He recounted, “As they were loading the luggage, this thought started playing in my mind that, okay, you will fly chopper, one hour you are there. The next three and a half hours, the luggages are not going to come. Will I go to bed? No. I still have to sit down and wait for these luggages to come. I was like so, why not just go with the luggages and get there and deliver to him and others in the room. Like I said, I always reason in the line of duty. And I went up to him, I said, Sir, I think its safer and will be secure for me to just ride and bring the luggage to you. He said, brilliant idea, and I said, Safe flight.”
Faleye, while reminiscing on the beginning of his working journey with Wigwe, said he had been a staffer of Diamond Bank, which was merged with Access Bank. He had been, according to him, worried of what this meant for the future of his career.
He said, “In the midst of my worry, I had a prayer group that we prayed every night, interestingly binding and casting that this merger is not going to work. And on Wednesday, that fateful day, my phone rang, and I heard, Dr. Herbert wants to see you. I was like how? From where? And I had to go to Uzoma’s office and I met him and he called my name, ‘Hi Sola, I would like you to start working with me.’”
Speaking further on his and Wigwe’s working relationship, Faleye said, “During COVID, when lockdown was to be announced, that evening, I was looking at him and I was worried. I’m like, I cannot leave him at this kind of moment, because my boss knows everything but he struggles with technology. So, I walked up to him and said, Sir, I will move in to Parkview with you.
“He said Sola tell me, whatever education, wherever in the world you want to have it, I will let you have it. I remember he enrolled in the University of London for his Law degree, I enrolled in the same university for my Masters in Information Technology, and we went through this journey together. I just noticed that suddenly, I became the son of the family.
“I came to realise thay one of the strengths of Dr. Herbert is that he comes to you in the time of storms and he rescues you.
“I still see him, he lives, he’s just everywhere living because his dream is scattered everywhere, germinating and growing.”
