The Mysterious Oguta Lake

The Oguta Lake can be identified as lean “Finger Lake”. It is the largest natural lake in Imo State, southeast Nigeria, and is located in the Niger Delta’s tropical rainforest. The two lakes have been identified as two angry lakes running parallel to each other but never come together.

 

According to Nationaldaily, the Oguta Lake is 8.05km long and 2.41km wide formed by clay, sand, and silt deposits that dammed the lower Njaba River, Imo as well as water inflows from Uju, Awbana and Urashi rivers.

 

Just like every mysterious lake in Nigeria there’s always a unique back story. The two rivers are thought by the natives to symbolize man and wife, or masculine and female. Ogbuide, considered to be the female, is the green water. The male Urashi is the brown water. According to the legend of the lake, Urashi and his wife Ogbuife quarreled and because of that they don’t flow together.

 

 

The Oguta Lake is now seen as a male and female deity, they even have two special shrines dedicated to them. The shrines are on the two sides of the lake, there their worshippers make sacrifices and worship them. Even though the lakes do not mix with each other, the worshippers are cool with one another.

 

 

Oguta is a popular tourist attraction and a lot of people flood the area to see the mysterious lake. The people that live close to the lake see it as a source of food and also transportation.

 

Another thing that makes this Oguta Lake unique is the fact that the lake is one of the theaters during the Nigerian civil war. There is a bunker that was used by the Biafrans during the Civil war but the bunker have been blocked. The Nigerian Army also made use of the lake as their base, this is one thing that makes the place different.

The Oguta Lake is still the same way today, the angry waters still flow side by side without mixing with one another.