Herbert Wigwe, co-founder of Entry Financial institution—the nation’s greatest financial institution by property—is constructing a $500 million eponymous college in his hometown in Nigeria’s oil-rich Rivers State. Wigwe informed Bloomberg this week that Wigwe College will provide undergraduate programs in administration, science and engineering, data expertise, and artistic arts. 

Wigwe is borrowing from the playbook of rich Nigerians like Atiku Abubakar, a former vice chairman, by venturing into tertiary training. The license for the college was approved by the Nigeria College Fee in June, bringing the overall variety of universities in Nigeria to 238, of which 79 are state-run and 147 are personal. 

With 1,400 college students anticipated to be enrolled subsequent yr, Wigwe is betting that by leveraging expertise, the establishment will provide the identical high quality of training as universities within the US and UK—the place he plans to recruit 30% of educating workers. Wigwe told BusinessDay that the college has constructed an influence plant to provide electrical energy to the college and can use holograms and synthetic intelligence to make sure a hybrid system for college students. However like different private-run universities, it’s costly for one of many world’s poorest nations. Wigwe College’s annual tuition is pegged at round $12,500 plus 3.5 million naira ($4,171), per Bloomberg.

uLesson—Nigeria’s greatest and most capitalised edtech startup based by Sim Shagaya—lately matriculated college students of its on-line college Miva Open University. The argument in regards to the scalability of training in Nigeria, contemplating the nation’s infrastructural challenges, is legitimate.

Wigwe, who has many years of expertise within the banking sector, additionally hopes to coach the “subsequent set of leaders in banking” and can recruit a few of the nation’s notable enterprise tycoons, together with Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote, to show on the varsity. 

Wigwe College can be led by Professor Miles Davis, the previous president of a non-public college in the USA, because the Vice-Chancellor, and Professor Nelson Uzoechi-Uzoma Alino, a former professor of accounting at Quinnipiac College, because the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Administration, and Professor Dal Didia, a former professor of economics at Jackson State College, because the deputy vice-chancellor of lecturers.