A 1981 wedding photograph taken in Calabar captures Senator Florence Ita-Giwa and the late Dele Giwa on their wedding day. The union lasted less than a year, but it remains one of Nigerian history’s most talked-about pairings of journalism and politics.
A Three-Week Romance, A 10-Month Marriage
Florence Ita-Giwa has said in interviews that she met Dele Giwa and married him three weeks later. She was drawn to his intelligence, eloquence, and writing.
The couple wed in Calabar in 1981. Biographical accounts show they separated after about 10 months.
Though the marriage ended, Florence retained “Ita-Giwa” as her public name. She built her career under it as a senator, presidential adviser, and a leading voice for the Niger Delta and Bakassi people. The name has since become synonymous with her public identity.
After their separation, Dele Giwa married Olufunmilayo Olaniyan. They remained married until his death on October 19, 1986.
Giwa was the founding editor-in-chief of Newswatch magazine, Nigeria’s most influential investigative publication in the 1980s. He was killed in Lagos after opening a parcel bomb, Nigeria’s first known letter-bomb assassination. His murder remains one of the country’s most controversial unsolved cases.
After the marriage, Ita-Giwa rose in business and politics. She represented Cross River South in the Senate from 2003 to 2007, served as Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, and became a prominent advocate for Bakassi residents after the peninsula’s transfer to Cameroon.
She remains one of Nigeria’s most recognisable female political figures.
The 1981 image is more than a personal memory. It documents the brief union of two Nigerians who shaped the country in different spheres: Giwa through fearless journalism, Ita-Giwa through public service and advocacy.
Their short marriage continues to link two enduring legacies in Nigeria’s social and political story.
Sources: Karl Maier, This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis; Richard Bourne, Dele Giwa: The Murder of a Journalist; Newswatch Magazine archives; Interviews with Florence Ita-Giwa, Daily Trust, Vanguard; Encyclopaedia Britannica
