Aba Book Club Rolls Out Projects to Mark 130 Years of Aba

The Aba Book Club has begun series of projects to commemorate the city’s creation as a British Colonial Division in 1895, which would culminate in a fundraiser for a library.

The planned projects which began June 4 will stretch to a conclusion by November 2025 with fundraising for a standard library in Aba.

The Curator, Aba Book Club, Mr Osondu Mbonu disclosed this at the press conference organized in Aba to mark the beginning of the commemoration projects.

He said the commemoration projects beginning with a press conference will include publication of a centenary album with information on 130 notable personalities who lived in Aba from 1900 to 1999.

Mbonu also said a book titled “Nwa Aba, Forged with Permanent Possibilities” will be launched as part of plans to correctly tell Abia’s story and rebrand it.

Mbonu said when the programme starts fully, it would be is a four-day event which has plans to showcase Aba people’s indigenous cultural art.

“We will also engage with Aba business people on linkages to improve their businesses.

“It will involve rebranding Aba as the creative, industrial “Enyimba City”, the launching of the Centenary album and a book on Aba with the launching proceeds channelled towards building a library.

“Currently, the book club has undertaken the bold initiative of reimagining Aba with a view to churning out a better narrative.

“It is not as the ‘China of Africa’, the ‘Japan of Africa’, or just ‘a place of buying and selling’, but boldly and unashamedly as “Aba”, the Enyimba City as the city is known.” he said

Mbonu said the reimagining of Aba would include re-writing the history of Ngwa people, a most generous Igbo group, owners of Aba and showcasing the city’s creative and industrial capacity.

He said the expansion of Aba under Gov. Alex Otti’s Greater Aba Development Authority, (GADA) into a five local government structure would increase its span from 72 to 230 square kilometers.

“While Aba has churches and mosques, including markets, schools, hospitals, burgeoning nightclubs, the city doesn’t have a standard library or book repository.

“As a book club, we laud the work being done by the state environmental protection agency and development authority (ASEPA & GADA).

“Yet we are asking for more, in simple and plain words: give us a library to help build the man fit to live in the city without endangering it.”Mbonu said.

Mbonu addressed the press in the company of Dr Mac-Kadicuo Orji, a Lecturer at Abia State University Teaching Hospital, Mr Nnamdi Elekwachi, Mr Ugochukwu Egbu and Ms Chidera Uwakwe.

Report by Ijendu Iheaka.