Senator Florence Ita-Giwa revealed why she married Dele Giwa

Senator Florence Ita-Giwa,the wife of Dele Giwa an editor of Newswatch magazine, who was killed by a letter bomb on October 19, 1986.


She talked about her relationship with him on Wednesday, December 7, during a radio programme on Hit FM, Calabar.

She said: “I became attracted to journalism because of my mother and the likes of Peter Enahoro, Sam Amuka and others. My mother worked for the West African Pilot and later The Guardian before she joined Sketch where she retired.

   “I stumbled into Dele Giwa because I liked his column. I did marry him eventually not because he was handsome, but what he had upstairs. When I met him coincidentally, I just told him that I had been reading his columns which I found entertaining and intellectually challenging.

  “On that particular day, he looked at his time and said he was going home to write his column, he requested that follow him to his house to see how he prepared the column, I agreed. We drove from Surulere to Ikeja because I was curious.

  “He did this up till about 3am the next morning, I was so amazed. I called my mum that early morning through his telephone (landline) to inform her that I was with Dele Giwa and that he was typing his column from his head.

  “From that day, we never parted until we got engaged three weeks after. He was a beautiful and intellectually rich human being that had so much in his head. He was very fearless. He was a prolific writer and I was always scared for his life.”