The contributions of Godwin Ehigiamusoe, managing director of LAPO Microfinance Bank, to nation building through poverty alleviation has come to limelight as he has been selected by Lagos Business School Alumni Association for the Distinguished Alumni Award for 2014.
Sharing the award with Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra State, Ehigiamusoe discloses that LAPO MFB plans to disburse N92.7 billion in 2014, after it disbursed a total of N62.2 billion in 2013.
Loan portfolio of the bank as of April 2014, stood at N25.8 billion, while it currently has 1.1 million active depositors.
The award was presented at the 20th Annual President’s Dinner held at Eko Hotel and Suites on June 7, 2014.
According to the alumni association, an alumnus so honoured “must have expanded the ideas of what is possible and what can be done in the society, setting new standards in the process.”
In the letter of notification of the award, the executive council of the alumni association states that it “recognises your immense contributions to nation building through your microfinance company,” adding that it “notes with pride how you have touched many lives, empowered the poor and given hope to the hopeless through your social entrepreneurial-brand of business.”
Ehigiamusoe founded LAPO (Lift Above Poverty Organisation) as a pro-poor development organisation with programmes in health, social development and economic empowerment. LAPO currently operates a foremost microfinance bank with over 1 million clients. In 2013, LAPO MFB disbursed N62.2 billion.
In 2008, Ehigiamusoe won the FATE Foundation’s Model Entrepreneur Award, and the Outstanding Social Entrepreneur – Africa of Professor by Schwab Foundation in 2010.
He authores Understanding NGOs (2008); Poverty and Microfinance in Nigeria (2000), and Issues in Microfinance (2011).
Ehigiamusoe was on the Chief Executive Programme 19, of the LBS in 2010.
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
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