Abiriba is a very beautiful town located in the northern part of Abia State, south eastern Nigeria. It has a beautiful landscape that turns everyone into a landscape photographer. Apart from the rich cultural heritage, It boasts of the largest agglomeration of architectural wonders in any rural community in Nigeria. A lot of urban geographers will be tempted to give it an outright classification as an urban settlement based on the architectural and infrastructural developments. However, most people living there are indigenes and the mostly, primary occupations like farming which rather leaves the classification of quasi-urban as more appropriate.

The indigenes of Abiriba are well traveled and knows what is in vogue and this over the years has affected the architectural patterns in the town. People travelled to major cities across the globe only to come back home to replicate the architectural designs they saw. In some cases, folks have brought European architects to design their houses. The people cannot be said to be mere money-bags rather they are people of style. A story was told of how the great Zik of Africa named it the Small London in the 50's during his campaign tour of the town. The story had it that in the course of the campaign that Zik was pressed and needed the use the toilet and his political associate from the town took him to his house where he used a WC. A bewildered Zik came out to proclaim the town as small London because such facilities were only common in the western world.

In January 2014, a friend and I took a photography tour of the town. We took many amazing different shots. Unlike most Igbo towns where people live in a dispersed settlement, Abiriba people live in nucleated settlements similar to what is obtainable in Yoruba land. The advantage this gives me as landscape and architectural photographer is that I was able to capture the relationships and the interconnection of the people in every shot. Sometimes, similarities in design of some houses will suggest to you that the owners of such houses are either brothers or close friends like in the case of J.N Kalu and Ukuku Dike near the Achi tree at the centre of the town and the two brothers’ mansions at Ugwuezi. Sometimes, it might only be fences that suggests such relationships like the Amsco House that has multiple mansions in one compound. Some siblings builds close to each other like the Ezera brothers at Amamba and a whole lot of others. Abiriba is a typical place where you cannot point at one mansion as the most beautiful. In attempt to showcase the most beautiful house in town, some people have built up to two or three residences in the community. Its possible most need bigger spaces for their expanding families but there are also few others that needs more befitting edifice. Many have also knocked down mansions and renovated to a more seemingly befitting ones.

Some mansions have stayed up to hundred years but there are many mansions that have stayed more than seventy years. However, the 80's saw a boom in building proliferation in the town and that coincides with the period of economic boom for the indigenes. It is sad that we may not be able to see most of these photos here because of space constraint but I hope to create a site that will show more photos than texts and then I hope to showcase most of the Abiriba photos we made in the tour. However, it is also important to reiterate the efforts of the communal institutions like the age grade in not just developing the town but also in sustaining its beauty by contributing in erecting major social infrastructures like roads, schools, libraries, hospitals and parks . These have aided in no small measure in creating beautiful scenes in the town.

CC: Lalasticlala

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