Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. ~Dale Carnegie As a proud ‘Aba brought up’ I was thrilled to see the short clips from Aba boys hyping the street credibility of those who grew up in the good old Enyimba city, so I added mine and enjoined other homies to do so. Some of the videos went viral and in no time people from other southeastern towns who felt challenged made their own videos to diss Aba more than to hype their own unique characteristics. The incident elicited some sharp exchanges and even though some took things a bit too far no harm was done. Rather it mostly gave us a few days of some healthy banter that was needed in a period of lockdown. Nevertheless, any forthright observer who is conversant with the south-east will tell you about the uniqueness of Aba. The resilient spirit displayed during the Aba women’s riot never left the town. Ojukwu himself cited this while professing his love for the town which he described as the “Igbo Heartland” and requested that his remains must be taken to Aba before interment. Combined with the entrepreneurial skills of her artisans and the quick wits of the everyday people these peculiar traits have placed Aba youths among the most successful Igbo people around the world. For us, survival is a must and impossible is nothing. My friends from the University of Maiduguri can attest to how I survived by selling clothes made by a tailoring genius named Colchoclob. Wherever you come across an ‘Aba brought up’ you won’t need a second guess. In any case, one cannot blame those who have an erroneous impression of Aba, after all, it is now reputed to be the dirtiest city in the South East if not the entire nation. It has come to represent all that is the failure of governance embodied in many Igbo leaders. Aba did not become the jhuggi it is now in just one day. As one who lived there during her glory days, my heart continued sinking as I watched the deterioration from the turn of the new millennium. Her dramatic social and economic decline can be likened to a lethal injection administered through many years of consistent misgovernance by leaders and pervasive abuse by residents. And even though this can be traced back to the military era, it must be said that our current democratic experiment spelt the death knell. I mean as of 2000, I was still able to muster friends from different parts of the country to grace the maiden graduation ceremony of my mother’s school. But I would later relocate her to Abuja in 2010 after the kidnap of her friend and several threat messages sent to her by men of the underworld. It may be difficult to find any Aba resident sending invitations beyond the town these days. I was born in Enugu and raised between Enugu and Aba. In that time I visited Owerri severally and lived in Onitsha so I know the major cities in the south-east like the back of my hand. Enyimba city back in the 80s was what you can rightly describe as the typical Igbo man’s dream town. It had a balanced mix of a busy commercial centre and the serene ambience of a suburb. The sprawling metropolis was literally divided into two halves, a densely populated commercial part known as ‘town’ and the newer, more residential half aptly named ‘over-rail’ because of an imagined boundary created by a traversing rail line. There is a massive motor park strategically located in the city centre yet a few metres away you can relax at the nearby Rotary Park or in the shades offered by the rubber plantation also within a strolling distance. In Aba town, you usually find the proletariat while the elites reside in ‘over rail’. The various intersections in the ‘town’ like East by Azikiwe, Kent by School road bear a quaint similarity with those in Piazza Garibaldi Naples while the massive Plazas that dot Park and Pound roads by Asa road remind me of the Haussmann buildings that line the boulevards of Paris. When Owerri could boast of only two major roads in Douglas and Wetheral, Aba already had dual carriageways like Aba-Owerri, Factory, Azikiwe, Ikot Ekpene and Port-Harcourt roads. Having crisscrossed the South East I am yet to see a better quality road than Margret Avenue financed by PZ Industries in the early 80s or the Okpu Umobo road done by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At the time Enugu had just the Nigerian Bottling Company located at the suburb of 9th mile, Aba had a purpose-built industrial layout within the metropolis. It was professionally mapped with solid paved roads constructed during the colonial days. Together with the commercial factory road, they hosted industries and major multinationals like NBL, Lever Brothers, International Equitable, UAC, UTC, GB Ollivant, RT Briscoe, SCOA, Bata CFAO and John Holt. Local enterprise equally thrived because Ariaria market which is one of the biggest in West Africa provided a ready ground for the production and trade of technical, textile and leather wares. It was not surprising that Aba topped the nation in indigenous production as companies like Star Paper Mills, Starline Industries, Onwuka Hi-Tec were leading manufacturers. It was also home to Ejinaka and Thornber which was the biggest private farm settlement east of the Niger. While Rufus Obi Chemist, Presidential tailors and Moneme bookshops gained national recognition in their various industries. The economy of the town boomed and traders trooped in not just from other parts of the country but also from across West Africa thereby earning her the nickname “Japan of Africa”. The senior staff of the multinationals ensured that the residential part of ‘over rail’ was impeccably clean and tranquil. Our station avenue residence at GRA Aba shared a common