The Aba Book Club on Thursday pleaded with the Abia State Government to give the city a befitting library or book repository to make the city lively and adaptable for sound minds thirsty for information.
Making the plea during the flag-off of the commemoration of the 130th anniversary of Aba as a British colonial division, the Book Club hailed the state government for the ongoing infrastructural upgrade in the city but insisted that without a standard library, a huge vacuum has been created.
Addressing newsmen during the flag-off, Mr. Osondu Mbonu, the curator of the Aba Book Club, said that the club has been at the forefront of the campaign to restore and recover Aba aesthetics, which is coming to fruition, but insisted that the club has unrelentingly been asking that a befitting library be built in the city.
“While as a book club, we laud the work being done by the state environmental protection agency and the Greater Aba Development Authority (GADA), we’re asking for more. The more we’re asking for, in simple and plain words, is to give us a library.
“As a book club, we say this because planning, development, and recovery of a city without a befitting library for refinement of human minds and character is planning and developing failure,” Mbonu said.
He added that in areas like entertainment and art, Aba had stamped its creative authority beyond the continent, adding that “before the disturbance of the sixties and civil war, Ghanaian musicians took Aba as their home and centre that evolved highlife music that is still evergreen.
“There were cinema houses, the likes of Rex, Emy, and Dandico Cinemas, even as musical bands like Semi Colon, Wrinkars Experience, One World, and Sweet Breeze Family of the Afrofunk genre took over the entertainment landscape of Aba of the 1970s.
“Hotel Unicoco, when it peaked in the 70s and 80s, would host great musical talents like Chief Osita Osadebe, Oliver De Coque, Sony Okosun, Fela Kuti, and a host of others.”
Mbonu went further to say that Aba still has the oldest sports club in the Southeast, the Aba Sports Club, founded in 1921, which also has one of the largest golf courses in southern Nigeria.
“Even the popular television sitcom, The Masquerade, has a history with Aba. The history of Nollywood itself, as we know it today, will never be a complete package without Aba, where movies like The Lost Kingdom, Missing Mask, Conspiracy, and more were shot.”
Mbonu said that the book club has undertaken the bold initiative of reimagining Aba with a view to churning out a better narrative, not 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 it is known.
“We are also beginning events to mark the one hundred and thirtieth anniversary of Aba as a colonial division, God helping us, by November of 2025. With time, we shall roll out programs lined up for this great event, including a book launch, an exhibition of artworks, music, and other cultures that evolved in the city. This and more are what we mean when we say ‘Nwa Aba. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.”
Mbonu called on the government, opinion leaders, religious leaders, captains of industries, and corporate entities within and outside Aba to partner and support them to make the realisable dream even more beautiful.
