Tucked snugly into the embrace of lush green vegetation, it is the epitome of calm and serenity. Oguta Lake, the largest natural lake in Imo State, is a major tourist attraction in the state, drawing an average of 17,000 visitors per annum. Myth has it that the goddess of the lake, Ogbuide, was once married to the god of the Urashi River. The marriage, however, ended on a sour note as both separated. As a result, their waters meet but never mix.
"Even when water from both rivers is put into a bowl, the bowl breaks," claimed Prema Anene Prema, a 100-Level student of Microbiology at the University of Abuja and an indigene of Oguta.
Among the many visitors to the lake are students from various universities all over the South East. All come seeking one thing – a slice of the lake’s peace and serenity. According to Mr. Felix Ekenze, the Chief Security Officer of the lake resort, "We get between 20 and 30 students per week mostly on weekends…they come all the way from Anambra, Rivers, and Aba".
Recently, students from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), came calling. It was a picnic of the Golden Voices Choir of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Chaplaincy, FUTO.
The day was Saturday – the normal student’s ‘free’ day – and the choristers turned out on the church premises as arranged, at 8am. Clad in breezy Caribbean-styled shirts, T-shirts of various colours, loose-fitting slacks, sandals, sneakers, sun-glasses and packing bags of beach paraphernalia, they looked ready for the business of the day – fun. After initial delays, the journey to the lake commenced at about 11am and about an hour and thirty minutes later, they were at the lake.
Part of activities they held were football and volleyball matches. Then, many dived into the cool lake for swimming. According to a student-chorister who did not want to be named: "At first, some of us were shy about changing and going into the water so we just played ball and cards but at a point, some of those who could swim went in and they looked like they were having so much fun that the rest of us – even those who couldn’t swim – couldn’t resist".
At lunchtime, it took the aroma of fried rice drifting into water-ravished nostrils and settling in growling tummies to get the students out of the water. The students ate and drank as a family while dancing to the music from the portable stereo set they had brought with them on the trip. As sumptuous as the meal was, it was finished in record time and the accompanying drinks gulped down as it was swim-time again.
Games were invented and played in the water, the more experienced swimmers taught their less-knowledgeable colleagues and those who didn’t feel up to returning to the water stayed on the banks taking photographs of the scenery and themselves. The arrival of the speed-boat for the cruise was greeted with shouts of joy from the happy student-choristers who then went ahead to cruise the Oguta Lake in two batches.
While the students excitedly chatted and took shots of the many colourful shrines adorning the banks, the more superstitious of the lot shushed their colleagues and equally warned them against taking pictures of the "sacred" shrines. When the boat got to the confluence of the Oguta and Urashi rivers and some of the students excitedly started taking shots again, one of them, Jude Ogbonna, in 400-Level Soil Science Technology, lost it. "Don’t take pictures!" he snapped. When asked for his reasons, he blurted: "I don’t know…you can talk if you must but don’t take pictures!"
As evening settled in, the students reluctantly left the water to dry up and change back into their clothes. They trooped back to the bus chatting excitedly about the day they had just had. One of them, Kelechi Egbe, in 300-Level Electrical and Electronics Engineering, gleefully exclaimed: "I learnt to swim a little…it was just fun!"

Paul Iwunze, a 300-Level Chemical Engineering student, said: "This is the best outing I have had in a long time" and he wasn’t the only one who felt so