Angry Israelis cut across a field of stubble to try to get around a police blockade to disrupt shipments of food and supplies intended for Gaza.

For weeks Israeli border officers allowed protesters to disrupt the critical aid convoys at Kerem Shalom, the country’s sole functioning border crossing with Gaza. But at the end of last month, with international pressure and condemnation mounting, authorities announced they were moving additional officers to the crossing to take back control. But even with the area now declared a closed military zone, protesters continue to arrive and try to outmaneuver the police.

Watch the video to see the scene.

The protests are being led by the “Tsav 9” movement, a grouping of demobilized reservists, families of hostages and settlers. Its name, meaning “Order 9,” is a reference to the emergency mobilization notices that call up reservists.

The protesters say they fear the aid is helping militants still holding their friends and relatives hostage, five months after the murderous cross-border raids led by Hamas that killed about 1,200 people in Israel with 200 more being taken prisoner. They hope preventing food and supplies from entering Gaza will force Hamas to release them. A recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that two-thirds of Jewish Israelis support their view opposing the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Watch the video to see protesters say why they don’t believe food should be sent to Gaza.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 30,000 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, and the remaining population has been forced from their homes and struggle to survive. The World Health Organization says food and safe water have become scarce and diseases are spreading. There is a surge of acute malnutrition, it says. Children are dying.

But aid has been slow to reach those in desperate need. Israel restricts what can go in, and a UN official said from February 24 to March 3 fewer than 1,000 trucks entered the strip, far below the required 500 daily.

Some countries started dropping aid from the air, and the US, UK and European Union are setting up a shipping corridor in the Mediterranean to access Gaza directly, but the UN says road access remains vital to stop a deepening of the catastrophe.

On Thursday, the Israeli border police ensured aid trucks got through at Kerem Shalom, but only after turning away several attempts by protesters over the course of several hours. As the day wore on, officers took a more aggressive stance against protesters.

Watch the video to see the tense exchanges.

This is a critical moment for aid delivery through Kerem Shalom as Gaza inches closer to famine. According to Gaza’s health authorities, at least 17 children have died from malnutrition and dehydration already.

Many more are sick. Inside Kamal Adwan Hospital – the only pediatric facility still operating in the north of Gaza – doctors are struggling to treat 7-year-old Fadi al Sant.

Watch the video to see Fadi, suffering from severe dehydration and malnutrition, with his mother. 

• Here’s how to help humanitarian efforts in Israel and Gaza.

Often called the father of mathematics, Archimedes was one of the most famous inventors in ancient Greece, with some of his ideas and principles still in use today.

But one fabled device has left scientists speculating on its existence for hundreds of years — the death ray. Now, a middle schooler may have some answers.

Brenden Sener, 13, of London, Ontario, has won two gold medals and a London Public Library award for his minuscule version of the contraption — a supposed war weapon made up of a large array of mirrors designed to focus and aim sunlight on a target, such as a ship, and cause combustion — according to a paper published in the January issue of the Canadian Science Fair Journal.

The Greek polymath has fascinated Sener since he learned of the inventor during a family vacation to Greece. For his 2022 science project, Sener recreated the Archimedes screw, a device for raising and moving water. But he didn’t stop there.

Sener found the death ray to be one of the more intriguing devices — sometimes referred to as the heat ray. Historical writings suggested that Archimedes used “burning mirrors” to start anchored ships on fire during the siege of Syracuse from 214 to 212 BC.

“Archimedes was so ahead of his time with his inventions. And it really did revolutionize technology at that time, because Archimedes was thinking about stuff that no one actually had before,” Sener said. “(The death ray) is such a neat idea that no one at that time would have thought of.”

There is no archaeological evidence that the contraption existed, as Sener noted in his paper, but many have tried to recreate the mechanism to see if the ancient invention could be feasible.

Miniature death ray

In Sener’s attempt at the ray, he set up a heating lamp facing four small concave mirrors, each tilted to direct light at a piece of cardboard with an X marked at the focal point. In this project he designed for the 2023 Matthews Hall Annual Science Fair, Sener hypothesized that as the mirrors focused light energy onto the cardboard, the temperature of the target would increase with each mirror added.

In his experiment, Sener conducted three trials with two different light bulb wattages, 50 watts and 100 watts. Each additional mirror increased the temperature notably, he found.

“I wasn’t exactly sure how the results would come out due to there being lots of different results with this topic, but I did expect that there would be increases in heat — but not as drastic as I found when I actually did my experiment,” Sener said.

The temperature of the cardboard during with just the heating lamp and the 100-watt light bulb and no mirrors was about 81 degrees Fahrenheit (27.2 degrees Celsius). After waiting for the cardboard to cool, Sener added one mirror and retested. The focal point’s temperature increased to almost 95 F (34.9 C), he found.

The greatest increase occurred with the addition of the fourth mirror. The temperature with three mirrors aimed at the target was almost 110 F (43.4 C), but the addition of a fourth mirror increased the temperature by about 18 F (10 C) to 128 F (53.5 C).

Writing in the paper, Sener said he found these results to be “quite remarkable as it suggests that light is going in all directions and that the shape of the concave mirror focuses the light waves onto a single point.”

Praising Sener for insights into Archimedes’ death ray, Cliff Ho, a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, said the project is “an excellent evaluation of the fundamental processes.” The facility is an engineering and science laboratory with the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

While the experiment doesn’t offer “anything significantly new to the scientific literature … his findings were a nice confirmation of the first law of thermodynamics,” which states energy or heat can be transferred, Ho said. The scientist had proposed a conference in 2014 on the death ray, concluding the idea was possible but would have been difficult for Archimedes to pull off.

Sener was not attempting to light anything on fire, as “a heating lamp does not generate anywhere near enough heat as the sun would,” he said. But he believes that with the use of the sun’s rays and a larger mirror, “the temperature would increase even more drastically and at a faster rate” and “would easily cause combustion.”

More theories on the death ray

Every two years, the Olympic torch is set ablaze using a curved parabolic mirror that concentrates sunlight into one point. Once the torch is put in that focal point, the sun’s rays ignite the torch. It is not widely believed that Archimedes used a single parabolic mirror, as it cannot be aimed the same way a flat mirror can.

Archimedes’ death ray is more commonly speculated to have been an array of several mirrors or polished shields. However, this theory is often discredited due to the idea that ships would be moving during battle. In order for the vessels to ignite from heat generated by the mirrors, they would have needed to be stationary and anchored near shore, said Thomas Chondros, a retired associate professor with the department of mechanical engineering and aeronautics at Greece’s University of Patras. Chondros has studied Archimedes and his inventions.

The Discovery Channel series “MythBusters” featured episodes in 2004, 2006 and 2010 testing out scenarios for the purported death ray but ultimately declared the legend to be a myth when each test failed to light a wooden boat on fire. In 2005, a class of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, inspired by the show’s first episode, was able to ignite a wooden boat once with a similar technique to Sener’s on a larger scale, but failed on a second attempt.

Sener said he believes that combining MIT’s findings with his own, the data could suggest the death ray was plausible, and Archimedes likely could have used the sun’s rays with large mirrors to cause combustion. But the technology may not work in cold temperatures or cloudy weather, and the sea’s impact on the ships’ motion affects the practicality of this device, he added in his paper.

Despite the limitations for the practicality of the death ray, Chondros found Sener’s project to be “interesting and well documented” and the teen’s experimental setup could “form the base of a discussion for young students, even University students,” he said in an email.

Sener’s mom, Melanie, was not surprised by her son’s choice in science project. “He has always been fascinated with history, with science, with nature. … He’s always had a thirst for any form of education and knowledge,” she said.

Sener could see himself one day being a scientist, whether it be in engineering, bioengineering or medicine, he said.

Hong Kong’s government unveiled a new suite of powerful national security laws on Friday that critics and foreign governments warn could deepen the ongoing crackdown in the city and further undermine its reputation as an international business hub.

The 212-page draft bill tabled into the city’s opposition-less legislature introduces a range of new national security crimes including treason, espionage, external interference and disclosure of state secrets.

The most serious offenses are punishable with up to life imprisonment, with the involvement of “external forces” – a byword for foreign governments and organizations – treated as an aggravating factor.

China and Hong Kong’s leaders say the laws are needed as part of their drive to “restore stability” following huge and often violent democracy protests in 2019 and argue their legislation is similar to other national security laws around the world.

Critics counter that what China’s Communist Party views as national security offences are far broader and more sweeping, often ensnaring political criticism, dissent and even business activity that would not be criminalized elsewhere.

They point to the application of national security laws in mainland China as well as in Hong Kong where a Beijing-imposed national security law has already transformed the once outspoken city since 2020, silencing almost all dissent and jailing dozens of political opponents. Many civil society groups have disbanded, and outspoken media outlets have shut down.

The new draft Hong Kong law – known locally as Article 23 – is aimed at “filling the loopholes” left by the Beijing-imposed version enacted in 2020, according to the Hong Kong government.

A previous attempt to pass Article 23 laws back in 2003 sparked huge protests and a government u-turn.

But the atmosphere in Hong Kong this time around is very different.

Many of the city’s leading pro-democracy figures are in jail either convicted or facing charges under the 2020 national security law.

Others have fled overseas, and the city’s once raucous legislature has been cleared of pro-democracy opposition politicians, resembling instead the type of rubber stamp bodies favored by the Chinese Communist Party on the mainland.

Public consultations for the new laws this time lasted 28 days, two months short of the time given during the earlier attempt in 2003 when hundreds of thousands of residents hit the streets in protest.

The government said 98% of the 13,147 pieces of feedback it received during the consultation period “showed support” for the new law and just 0.7% voiced opposition, including a dozen from what it called “overseas anti-China organizations or abscondees.”

Hong Kong’s legislature convened special sessions for the first and second reading of the proposed bill on Friday and within three hours after it was tabled.

They were prompted by Hong Kong’s leader John Lee – a former police officer and security chief – who told lawmakers to pass the law “at full speed.”

“Completing the legislative work even one day earlier means we can more effectively safeguard national security one day earlier,” he said in a letter to the legislature on Thursday.

Authorities have yet to announce when a third reading will take place.

Last month, the United States warned Article 23 risks “compounding the 2020 National Security Law that has curtailed the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong.”

In a statement, the US Department of State said it was concerned by the “broad and vague definitions of ‘state secrets’ and ‘external interference,’” which could potentially be used to silence dissent, and some of the provisions that may have extraterritorial effects.

Akira Toriyama, the Japanese manga artist who created the enormously popular and influential Dragon Ball series, died of a brain condition last week at the age of 68, his production studio said Friday.

Toriyama was the mind behind the fantasy martial arts franchise featuring Son Goku, a boy from outer space with superhuman strength and a monkey tail who embarks on a quest for the seven dragon balls.

The Dragon Ball universe remains one of Japan’s most successful global hits, captivating the hearts of many manga-loving teens and adults from around the world since its debut in the 1980s.

Toriyama’s death was announced on Friday by Dragon Ball’s official website in a shared statement from Bird Studio and Capsule Corporation Tokyo.

“It’s our deep regret that he still had several works in the middle of creation with great enthusiasm,” it said.

“He would have many more things to achieve. However, he has left many manga titles and works of art to this world,” it added, thanking fans for their support on Toriyama’s behalf.

The artist died of acute subdural hematoma, a form of brain bleeding, the statement said.

Born on April 5, 1955 in Kiyosu City, Aichi prefecture, Toriyama began drawing manga at the age of 23.

He made his debut as a cartoonist in 1978 by submitting a short story to manga fans’ magazine Weekly Shonen Jump.

His “Dragon Ball” series went on to be featured in the same magazine in 1984 and was front and center of a creative career that spanned more than four decades.

The franchise is based on classic Chinese novel Journey to the West and has since been adapted into into anime and the 2009 Hollywood action movie “Dragon Ball Evolution.”

As Son Goku sets off for his quest in search of the seven dragon balls, he fights off villains along the way and protects the Earth. As he ages, the storyline shifts to his descendants and friends.

The dragon balls, when collected, can summon Shen Long, a divine dragon that can grant any wish. Son Goku often ended up spending the wishes on his friends or restoring a heavily destructed Earth in the series centered on courage, friendship and kinship.

Prominent Japanese author and game designer Yuji Horii, a longtime friend of Toriyama, said they worked on the popular game Dragon Quest together.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” he wrote on social media platform X.

Eiichiro Oda, creator of manga series “One Piece,” said the thought of never seeing his friend Toriyama again “fills me with sadness.”

Toriyama “took the baton from the era when reading manga would make you stupid, and created an era where both adults and children read and enjoy manga. He showed us the dream that manga can do things like this and that we can go to the world,” Oda said on the Shonen Jump website.

Many fans also paid tribute to the manga heavyweight online.

“Dragon Ball was my textbook for life. It taught me that I could overcome any hardship if I worked on it cheerfully and with enjoyment,” one fan wrote on X.

More than 300 students were taken early Thursday by the armed bandits on motorcycles who stormed the LEA Primary and Secondary School in the Kuriga village of Kaduna’s Chikun district, the state’s police spokesman Mansur Hassan said.

Some of the students were rescued but 287 of them remain with the kidnappers, Hassan said.

“Students were kidnapped from the school premises on Thursday morning around 8:00 am (local time). About 287 students are still in the hands of the bandits, 100 from the primary side and 187 from the secondary school,” Hassan said, adding that “over 300 students were initially kidnapped, but some were rescued.”

Earlier, Reuters reported that 227 children were kidnapped, citing a teacher, local councilor, and parents of the missing children. Several other reports including the Washington Post and a local outlet report 287, citing the school’s headteacher.

Governor of Kaduna state, Uba Sani said in a statement Thursday that his government was “doing everything possible to ensure the safe return of the pupils and students” kidnapped.

Sani also said a member of the community who confronted the abductors during the attack was killed, adding that the President of Nigeria and the National Security Adviser were aware of the situation, and a Security Committee and a military base will be established in Kuriga to strengthen security in the area.

Kaduna state, which borders the Nigerian capital Abuja to the southwest, has grappled with recurring incidents of kidnappings for ransom by bandits and has witnessed several mass abductions in recent years, including in the district where LEA Primary and Secondary School is located.

Amnesty International’s Nigeria office condemned the kidnapping while urging authorities to take immediate measures “to prevent attacks on schools, to protect children’s lives and their right to education.”

Hundreds of seabirds have been found dead on French Atlantic beaches, exhausted by unusually heavy winter storms that prevent them from feeding, environmentalists said.

More than 500 common guillemots – seabirds related to penguins and puffins – have been found dead along the French Atlantic coast since the year began, French League for Birds has estimated.

Antoine Prevel, a volunteer for the nonprofit Sea Shepherd France, said guillemot beachings happen regularly in winter, but not to the scale of the past weeks.

Scientists say it is likely the birds died from exhaustion due to difficult conditions at sea.

“Climate change is an indirect cause, as it increases the frequency and intensity of storms, particularly winter storms, which are the main reason for massive strandings of seabirds,” said Jerome Fort, a scientist from France’s National Center for Scientific Research.

Poisoning by micro plastics and chemical contamination can also weaken the birds, and the fish they prey on have become rare and relocated closer to shore due to climate change and overfishing, Fort added.

Guillemots cannot survive without food for two or three days, as they have few energy reserves and need to feed almost constantly.

“In storms like we have seen recently, these birds find it hard to feed properly and will die of exhaustion,” Fort said.

Israel’s military has said its investigation into the deadly humanitarian aid incident in Gaza last month found Israeli troops did not fire at the aid convoy, but at “a number of suspects” who approached and posed a threat to nearby forces.

More than 100 people were killed in the incident in northern Gaza, which has become known as the “Flour Massacre,” as Israeli troops opened fire near civilians gathering around food aid trucks, triggering panic.

A local journalist in Gaza, Khader Al Za’anoun, who was at the scene and witnessed the incident, said at the time that the chaos and confusion only began once Israeli troops opened fire, and that many of the victims were run over by trucks in the ensuing panic.

“The command review found that IDF troops did not fire at the humanitarian convoy but did fire at a number of suspects who approached the nearby forces and posed a threat to them,” the IDF said in a summary of the report released Friday.

The IDF said that thousands of Palestinians swarmed the aid trucks, which were traveling toward distribution centers, looting the trucks’ equipment. They added that “incidents of significant harm” occurred to civilians from a stampede and being run over by trucks.

The IDF said during the crowding, dozens of Palestinians “advanced towards nearby IDF troops, up to several meters from them, and thereby posed a real threat to the forces at that point.”

“At this stage, the forces fired cautionary fire in order to distance the suspects. As the suspects continued to advance toward them, the troops fired precisely toward a number of the suspects to remove the threat,” the IDF’s summary said.

The United Nations said earlier that most of the civilians wounded in the incident presented gunshot wounds. The international body could not determine the same for the deceased.

UN experts earlier this week condemned the incident as a “massacre,” and have called on Israel to relax its severe restrictions on food aid entering Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are facing the prospect of famine.

A chance discovery made in southern France has revealed a rare specimen — an almost complete dinosaur skeleton found connected from its hind skull to its tail.

The massive fossil came to light in May 2022, after now 25-year-old amateur paleontologist Damien Boschetto and his dog stumbled across something unusual while walking in a forest in Montouliers, France. Boschetto had noticed a cliff edge that had recently collapsed and decided to take a closer look, when he spotted an exposed bone sticking out of the ground, local media outlet France Bleu first reported on February 13.

“From a museography point of view, it will make it possible to present to the general public animals almost complete in anatomical positions, which is something great,” Boschetto added via email.

A group of history and archaeology enthusiasts created the Archaeological and Paleontological Cultural Association in 1975 to safeguard the heritage around the village of Cruzy, with several members becoming enlightened amateurs in paleontology due to the areas’ wealth of dinosaur fossils, said Jean-Marc Veyssières, a member of the group and one of the fossil preparers for this discovery. Today, the association is made up of inhabitants of the region, including a few scientists as well as students.

“The most exciting thing was to realize that we had at least one anatomically connected animal and that it was a titanosaur, a long-necked dinosaur,” said Veyssières in an email. “(Boschetto) is an enlightened enthusiast and curious about nature, he spends a lot of time surveying the region in search of new areas. … He became an expert on the Late Cretaceous fauna of our region.”

The association has been excavating the site, which Boschetto referred to as a bone bed, a term used by paleontologists to describe a dense area of animal bones and other fossilized remains, for the past two years. And the newly announced find was not Boschetto’s first.

The recently revealed 70% complete Titanosaur skeleton was retrieved during the excavation along with several fossils of various dinosaurs and other vertebrates, including some in anatomical connection and near complete. Other remains identified included those of a Rhabdodon — a herbivore, or plant-eater, like the Titanosaur — and fragments from skeletons of carnivores such as Theropods and crocodiles, according to Boschetto.

The Titanosaur skeleton currently resides in the Cruzy Museum’s laboratory, where it will be further studied, Veyssières said.

Titanosaur found intact

Researchers estimated the age of the newly discovered fossil to be around 70 to 72 million years old, but Titanosaurs roamed around on four legs from the Late Jurassic Epoch to the end of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 163.5 million to 66 million years ago. Titanosaurs belong to a larger group of dinosaurs known as sauropods, a family of long-necked herbivores that were some of the largest dinosaurs of their time, according to Britannica.

Remains of Titanosaur fossils are widely unearthed in Europe, but few are discovered in anatomical connection, Boschetto said. Finding a skeleton in this connected state suggests that the body was buried before it had entirely decomposed, leaving “some tissues connecting the bones to one another,” said Matthew Carrano, research geologist and curator of Dinosauria at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History.

The completeness of the specimen will “make it easier to determine whether it’s a new species or a new specimen of a species that’s already known,” Carrano said in an email. “It will take time to learn all the details about this new specimen, but I’m sure it will provide important new information about this group of dinosaurs.”

The region in which Boschetto discovered the specimen is known to be rich in fossils of dinosaurs and other species living at the same time and is “building one of the largest collections of dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous in France,” he said. The association did not publicize the discovery until excavation was complete to protect the archaeological site, he added.

The association plans to continue research on the fossils and to further search the area, and the group’s members hope to obtain the funds to “create a large-scale museum that can accommodate and present these collections,” Boschetto said.

Nearly a year after civil war broke out between the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces, more than 25 million people in northeastern Africa are facing “the world’s largest hunger crisis.”

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says nine in 10 people across Sudan are “trapped” by “relentless violence.” The fighting is fueling “emergency levels” of food insecurity, not only in the war-torn country, but also in neighboring Chad and South Sudan where millions of refugees have fled.

The Sudanese civil war has also triggered the world’s largest displacement crisis. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 8.1 million people have fled since fighting erupted in April 2023. The agency reports some 6.3 million people are internally displaced while another 1.8 million have escaped to neighboring countries such as Egypt, Chad, and Ethiopia.

Many civilians are among the thousands killed and wounded. Women, children, and teens have been especially vulnerable with rising reports of domestic and sexual violence targeting them.

Aid organizations are on the ground delivering relief to refugees. Click HERE or use the form below to help those who need it most during this ongoing situation.

French President Emmanuel Macron and former US President Bill Clinton were among those paying tribute to Nigerian banking boss Herbert Wigwe as his funeral got underway.

Wigwe was a towering figure in African banking and philanthropy and his death has spurred an outpouring of grief.

A seven-day funeral ceremony celebrating his life is currently being held in Nigeria’s commercial hub Lagos.

Wigwe died last month in a helicopter crash along with his wife and son in the Mojave Desert near the California-Nevada border. A former group chairman of the Nigeria Stock Exchange, Abimbola Ogunbanjo, was also killed in the crash.

“France has lost a great friend in Herbert Wigwe,” said Macron, represented Wednesday by French foreign trade minister Franck Riester at the ‘Night of Tributes’ memorial for the Wigwes held in Lagos’ Victoria Island.

“Not only was he dedicated to the development of cross-cultural initiatives between our two countries, but he has also without respite worked to increase our economic partnership,” he added.

Former US President Bill Clinton also paid tribute to Wigwe, saying “Words cannot ease the pain of such a tragic loss.”

Clinton added that he “deeply admired Herbert’s commitment to widening the circle of opportunity for young people in Nigeria and supporting humanitarian work around the world.”

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu earlier called the death of the Wigwes “an overwhelming tragedy that is shocking beyond comprehension,” while Vice President Kashim Shettima mourned their deaths in a eulogy delivered at the memorial Wednesday.

“Herbert left us in winter before the season of bloom,” the Nigerian vice president said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa described Wigwe as a “continental partner and banking sector pioneer” whose death was a “terrible loss.”

Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote gave a tearful tribute to Wigwe, describing him as a “loyal friend” and “mentee.”

“I feel very helpless because I could not prevent the tragedy that befell my friend, brother, and mentee – a very loyal friend for that matter,” said Dangote who added he was immortalizing Wigwe by renaming one of the major roads leading to his refinery after him.

Wigwe’s aide, Olusola Faleye, described his final moments during the ‘Night of Tributes’ event held in Lagos on Wednesday. Faleye said he was supposed to fly with his boss on the ill-fated journey to Las Vegas but opted at the last minute to go by road with the family’s luggage.

“Since 2019, I cannot count one or two places or flights that he (Wigwe) has been in that I’m not in it. We were always together,” said Faleye.

Building Africa’s biggest bank

Born in August 1966 in the city of Ibadan, Wigwe’s father Shyngle was a civil servant, and his mother Stella a nurse. Wigwe has spoken of how they instilled in him the values of hard work, integrity, and service to others.

Wigwe graduated with a degree in accounting from the prestigious University of Nigeria Nsukka in 1987 and embarked on a career in finance. He later pursued a master’s degree in Banking and Finance at North Wales University (now Bangor University) in the United Kingdom.

In 1991 Wigwe returned to Nigeria and began his professional journey as a graduate assistant at Coopers and Lybrand Associates Limited, swiftly rising through the ranks.

He later joined the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), where he became the youngest executive director at the age of 32.

It was during his tenure at GTB that Herbert forged a lifelong friendship and partnership with Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, another rising star in the Nigerian banking scene.

Together, they set their sights on a venture that would change the landscape of Nigerian banking forever.

In 2002, Wigwe and Aig-Imoukhuede made history by acquiring Access Bank, a relatively unknown institution at the time.

Under his leadership, Access Bank transformed from a modest entity into one of Africa’s biggest banks, with branches in Paris and South Africa. Wigwe was planning an Asian expansion at the time of his death.