Dr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe @ 63: AKA Mr. LAPO, Lifter Of The Poor

Dr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe, who turned 63 on Saturday, August 21, 2021 has unquestionably etched himself at the top of the country’s microfinance sector through his founding role in the Lift Above Poverty Organisation, LAPO.

Though LAPO is today universally acclaimed as a success story and a reference point in the microfinance subsector of the finance industry, the narrative was a deliberate effort on the part of Dr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe. For a man who studied Sociology up to graduate school he was not unconscious of the divisions in the society between the rich and the poor.

After graduate school he deliberately chose to identify with the lower rung in society. That deliberate choice may have informed the naming of the organization that is synonymous with him as Lift Above Poverty Organisation; to wit, the determination to lift the lower class out of the morass of deprivation and dearth.

Indeed, his proclivity towards the sector was also driven by the dislocation of the middle class following the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP in 1986. That programme increased the population of the poor in the country, and that also, the determination of Dr. Ehigiamusoe to intervene and lift that segment of the society above penury.

LAPO as an organization started in 1987 as a non-profit organization to help cushion the effect of SAP on the lower rung of the society. The organization has progressed over time into a profit organisaiton with a niche in service delivery, accessibility among others.

Dr. Ehigiamusoe stepped down as the Managing Director of LAPO Microfinance bank in November 2019 after making a success of LAPO as the number one institution in micro-finance. He had also over time groomed a management that he could comfortably trust to handle his life project!

While he is almost universally associated with LAPO and its successes, he has also stretched his arms towards the Insurance industry and publishing sectors. He is chairman of chairman of the Orange Insurance Brokers Limited, an insurance brokerage firm. He is also the chairman of Orange Printing and Publishing Company.[8][9]

In 2019, Ehigiamusoe became the chairman of GOXI Microinsurance Company Limited, Nigeria’s first license specialized Microinsurance Company and Benin Medical Care, a medical and diagnostic facility in Benin City.

He also serves as the chairman of TDS technologies limited, LAPO Institute for Management Studies, and GOBETH Reliance Investment Company Limited.

Despite the challenges from the macro-economic environment there is no doubt as to the success that Dr. Ehigiamusoe has made in his fort as Nigeria’s favoured star in the microfinance sector and as the lifter of the poor.

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