FLORENCE ITA GIWA SETS CALABAR AGLOW WITH DAUGHTER'S TRADITIONAL WEDDING

-As Bride, Koko Goes To Fattening Room, In Accordance With Efik Custom

This is a very cheering news, coming from the homestead of Senator Florence Mayen Ita-Giwa. It is about the traditional wedding ceremony of her second daughter, Kokoeta Florence Mayen. In what promises to be a classy ceremony, Koko and her fiancé, Chimaobi Showcross Obioha will be performing their traditional marriage ceremony in Calabar, Cross Rivers State. The event comes up at Senator Ita-Giwa's country home in Calabar. Chimaobi is the son of Ita-Giwa’s close friend.

Last weekend, Senator Ita-Giwa and her daughter had returned

from Beirut, Lebanon and Europe, where they had gone to shop for the wedding trousseau. A few days later, they left for Calabar, where Koko is expected to undergo the Fattening Room custom. She is due to complete the process later today.

The Fattening Room is an aged old tradition of the Efik people of Calabar, which has been greatly modified for today's generation. This ancient tradition is the training given to young women while they are in seclusion to prepare them for marriage and womanhood.
The Efik send their women to 'fattening rooms' in preparation for marriage. Further modification of the fattening process requires women to go away to 'beauty rooms' instead. 

During the fattening period the girl is being cared for by older women not her mother but maybe her aunts or village elders (women) and is not allowed to come in contact with other people. She is put in a room where on a daily basis, is massaged three times, fed about six large portions of food (like porridge ekpang, plantain, yam fufu and assorted pepper soups), drinks three pints of water three times and gets plenty of sleep. This process ensures the bride gets a healthy waistline - The bigger the better!
In some places the fattening room is divided into 3 stages – some

months before marriage, a week before marriage and after childbirth. 

The white wedding ceremony between Koko and Chimobi is scheduled for September 20, 2014, at the Methodist Church of the Trinity, Tinubu Square, Lagos, at 3 p.m, with a lavish reception slated for Eko Hotel & Suites on Victoria Island, Lagos. 
Already, preparations towards the hosting of the event, have reached high pitch. Boxed invitation packages, wrapped in fuchsia and purple silk along with the lace aso ebi, headgear and aso oke cap are being dropped on the doorsteps of Nigeria’s most engaging and colourful dignitaries from all walks of life. 

Koko is a graduate of the University of Essex, United Kingdom, and she recently completed her second Masters. She spent her childhood years, spending quality times with her mother and her best friend, Sisi Abah Folawiyo. Koko, 23, is described as a young lady with good manners and she is imbued with great intelligence.

Wave-making event planner, Ndidi Obioha of Enthyst has been commissioned to plan and organise the wedding ceremony.