By Mohammed Adamu
Preamble
Many especially Facebook friends of mine who know my relationship with the Princess of Bakassi, Sen. Florence Ita-Giwa, recently inundated my box with messages asking to know what was -or maybe still is- amiss between this former Special Adviser to President Obasanjo on NASS, and one of the former Governors of her Cross River State, Donald Duke.
And what could I have said? Until now I had initially intended saying ‘nothing’! Because sometimes you have to be careful how you ‘carry yaa mouth put inside’ especially sibling political altercations. Lest the altercators soon burry their hatchet, leaving you with the short end of the stick and looking morose particularly in the eyes of the party against whom you had sided. In this case Duke.
Yes Duke. Because I believe that in any man-woman brickbat men should always be chivalrous enough to take only the right side? -namely the woman’s side. And especially in this case if you know my relationship with both the Princess of Bakassi and the ‘Tinapa Duke’ himself, Donald.
Not that Duke is bound to remember that I owe him this veneration, but I have a policy as much as I can, of not forgetting even the ancient courtesies of the friends of my own friends. Ita-Giwa had severally -even if often unwarrantedly- brought me into the company especially of these two of her closest former State Governors, namely Lyel Imoke and Donald Duke.
By the way this was as far back as between 2003 and 2007 when the going was good for the Princess and the Duke. That was precisely during Obasanjo’s Second Term administration. In fact Calabar was like my second home then, and whenever the State had any major event, (especially during the Tinapa days), the Duke had always wanted ‘his’ Princess Ita-Giwa around and Ita-Giwa too had always wanted her ‘Cicero’, yours truly, in tow.
But you know what politics often do even to the bosomest of political friends. Just now it has them together like a broom, and just now it rends them apart like antipodes. Yet the lesson for appendage-friends like us remains the same: that no matter what happens or who is or who is not at fault between your bonafide and your auxillary friends, be sure always to go with who brought you to, and not who you met at, the parley.
Meaning that now you can see also that it is not for the reason of chivalry alone that I am supporting my Princess, but that it is also for loyalty’s sake.
THE GIST
Donald Duke, had recently circulated an unwarrantedly insultive piece of satire casting aspersion on Ita-Giwa’s ancestry, her nursing profession and her social life, including I should add, passing uncharitable innuendos generally about the passion of her life: family, children and motherhood. In the statement, the former Governor had said that his reason for this eminent condescension was that Ita-Giwa had previously made remarks about him and in which she cast doubt about his gender and his male-hoodness.
Yes people! The whole thing had started from as innocuous as the use of the ‘third person singular pronoun ‘her’ by my Princess to adjectivize the character of his Duke-ship, Donald! And the former Governor was like saying that Ita-Giwa was subjecting his ‘manhood’ (apologies to Mama P) to the obloquy of public doubt’. My Princess sef Sabi look for trouble! And that was why if you remember, his Duke-ship in his rebuttal, went virtually overboard exhibiting three children as proof of his masculinity.
Can you imagine? A fitting ‘Soap-sequel’ you would say, to ‘The Rich Also Cry’. Only you call this ‘The Rich Also Nag’! In any case when I asked to see the footage of Ita-Giwa’s alleged lingualistic-mis-genderisation of Duke, I saw that it was virtually all ‘fist’ and -in my humble opinion- no ‘fury’ at all. I’m fact maybe Onarie Duke, the real woman in this case, would’ve been more justified to get petty about such trivia than a whole ‘grown arse man’ (apologies to the Americans), who was even a Governor for that matter. Anyway, in politics there are no big or small fights.
THE GIST BEHIND THE GIST
So now the gist behind the gist first: Ita-Giwa, an Effik woman, had, in the last election supported and helped to victory the current PDP Governor of the State, Bassey, (an Effik man), -but who, ironically, the former Governor, Donald Duke, (also an Effik man), did not only NOT support, but in fact de-campaigned. And so in the heat of a postmortem of that election, at a gathering recently in Calabar, Ita-Giwa said (and I am only quoting the part relevant to the gist:
“There is an Effik man (who came with nothing but a briefcase and was funded to become Governor, but) who (now) does not want any other Effik son or daughter to rear his or her head. But I am a mother, I will not mention HIS or HER name because I don’t even know what sex he belongs to”!
Do not take, do not add; this was just it! Yes, na dis be de koko of the whole matter. This was the very quip that started the war of the two sexes in Cross River between my Lady, the Princess of Bakassi and his Duke-ship the Prince of Tinapa. And last week after reading Duke especially, you’d think that Adam had resurrected asking Eve to return the piece of borrowed rib!
By the way, the Princess had said so many other things especially about the Duke’s “419-projects” and all, but when you read through Duke’s subsequent satiric response, it is obvious he was pained more by the mis-genderisation of his person than even the 419zation (?) of his projects -especially the once-hyped Tinapa resort which Ita-Giwa said some white American who now saw the derelict remains of, almost wept.
Now, what I have learnt from the grapevine is that Ita-Giwa’s apparent lingualistic transgenderisation of Donald Duke was neither premeditated by malice nor momentarily spurred by any malevolence. It was rather a Freudian slip of sort, spurted from the mental picture of a MAN she believes always has a penchant for condescension into the galaria of feminine pettiness. From the tape I watched, it was in a feat of that Freudian angst that she said “I will not mention HIS or HER name” and had to conclude with “I don’t even know what sex he belongs to”!
And many said that Duke had in fact amply proved Ita-Giwa’s characterization even by his last response in which he pettily resorted to the base cosmeticization of the entire issue by bringing bras, breasts and bracelets into the brickbats. And in fairness to him here, he only proved a diligent student of Shakespeare who said “All is fair in war and ten-to-one is no impeach of valor”! Nonetheless, to his allegation that she did “breast implant and upliftment”, this was Ita-Giwa’s response:
“It is a fact that, 18 years ago I underwent liposuction (fat reduction) around my hips; a feature I obviously inherited from my late Mother. This was public knowledge, as I had informed the media. I do not do things and hide in the shadows, or are ashamed of. Nobody leaked any secret, as that procedure was public knowledge. I have consistently counselled younger women not to be scared of ageing, as it is an inevitable phase of life, but rather they should embrace the prospect of ageing gracefully and beautifully in good health, by embracing a healthy lifestyle and seeking any wholesome and safe medical intervention needed”!
Epilogue
If anything they said, this was the reason Ita-Giwa must’ve resolved to deal with the gender-discension delinquency of Donald Duke with the petty parity that it required, namely by tackling ‘him’ ‘Woman to Woman’, bra to bra’, ‘breasts for breasts’ and ‘bracelets for bracelets’ (since that appeared to be the only langua he understood).
That, by the way, is about all that I know of this gender war on the Calabar! You people should leave me alone please!
Culled from Muhammad Adamu’s Facebook page
