Former presidential adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, has faulted the allegation by the retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mr. Christopher Omeben, that Dele Giwa was a womaniser. Ita-Giwa, who extolled the virtues of the deceased journalist, wondered why the octogenarian would speak ill of a dead man that he once claimed he never knew in his previous interviews.
The former special adviser said this in a statement she issued in Calabar on Monday..
She noted that Dele Giwa was career-driven and too pre-occupied with his profession to womanize, adding that because he cherished family values, he decided to remarry rather than womanize as wrongly alleged by Omeben.
The senator also reiterated that from the time she separated from Dele Giwa when they occupied a bungalow provided for him as his official residence by the Concord Newspaper, she never knew where he moved to until after he was assassinated.
She also said that she did not know the location of the Newswatch Magazine office because she had moved on with her life.
Ita-Giwa insisted that the separation was amicable and was borne out of the fact that both of them were ambitious and career-driven individuals.
She recalled, “I was in Calabar when my mother called to break the sad news and I had to travel down to Lagos. I got the name of the hospital and was redirected to the LUTH mortuary where I met the late Gani Fawehinmi who said, ‘Madam, they have killed your husband. He later instructed the mortuary attendant to open his body, insisting that “a wife is always a wife, and Dele’s wife is here.”
The senator said she vividly recalled that the deceased’s ex-American wife, Billy’s mother, his few other family members and his colleagues, such as Ray Ekpu and Kayode Soyinka, were at the graveside till late evening and subsequently went to the village.
Ita-Giwa noted that at that same period, because of the state of fear and anxiety, some miscreants did a letter of ‘threat to her life’ and demanded ransom.
“It is important to correct the impression as alleged in a recent newspaper publication that I was invited. I was never invited,” she said.
She said she would continue to defend the late Dele Giwa’s legacy and remained proud of his intellectual prowess.
