Since the people were predominantly merchants, they were widely travelled both within and outside the boundaries of Nigeria, and they are correspondingly cosmopolitan. Being so exposed and prosperous, the people have enough information about vogue and money that made them transform their locality from the normal village setting, as is common with the surrounding villages, to a model sub-urban but purely residential setting with some of the most exotic building in the Igbo land, even in Nigeria as a whole. The Abiriba people take great pride in the serenity and aesthetic value of their landscape, consequently shunning attempts by government or individuals to set up factories in the town, and seeing same as attempts to "pollute" their land. In 1959, the late President of Nigeria, The Rt Honourable Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was so taken in by the beauty of Abiriba that he called it the "Small London" - a name in use till date and forever.