Former presidential adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, has faulted allegations made by retired Deputy Inspector General of Police Christopher Omeben, suggesting that her late husband, Dele Giwa, endangered his own life by continuing to relate with her after their separation.
Ms. Ita-Giwa, who extolled the virtues of the late founder of Newswatch, wondered why the octogenarian would speak ill of a dead man that he once claimed he never knew or heard about in previous interviews.
She noted that Dele Giwa was career-driven and too pre-occupied with his profession to womanise and that because he cherished family values, he decided to remarry rather than womanize as alleged by Omeben.
The former senator also reiterated that from the time she separated from Giwa, when they occupied a bungalow provided for him as official residence by the Concord newspaper, she neither knew where he moved to until after he was assassinated nor did she know the location of Newswatch because she had moved on.
She insisted that the separation was amicable and was borne out of the fact that both of them were ambitious and career driven individuals and could not continue the relationship.
The senator recalled that she was in Calabar when her mother called to break the sad news and she had to travel down to Lagos.
She said when she got to the name of the hospital, she was redirected to the LUTH mortuary where she met the late Gani Fawehinmi who told her ‘Madam, they have killed your husband.’
He later instructed the mortuary attendant to open his body saying a wife is always a wife, and Dele’s wife is here.
She recalled vividly that she and Mr. Giwa’s American wife, Billy’s mother (present wife at the time), a few other family members and his colleagues like Ray Ekpu, Kayode Soyinka, late Sani Macabu were at the graveside till late evening and subsequently went to the village to commiserate with the family before departing.
Ms. Ita-Giwa said: “At that same period, because of the state of fear and anxiety, some miscreants did a letter of a ‘threat to her life’ and demanded ransom. She immediately proceeded to Alagbon to lodge complaint and made statement and that it was during the process that they asked her about her late husband. It is important to correct the impression as it was alleged in a recent newspaper publication that she was invited; she stressed that she was never invited.
She recalled also that on one occasion, she was to travel and on getting to the airport, she was stopped.
She called the man in charge of the case and the officer called the airport that she should be allowed to leave because she was not an issue.
Ms Ita-Giwa added that “no one should try to blackmail or tarnish her hard-earned reputation built over the years by the grace of God and by the support of the Nigerian people.”
She said she would continue to defend the late Dele Giwa’s legacy because she remained proud of his intellectual prowess.
-PT
