Tourism : My visit to Agulu Lake, Umuowelle Village, Anambra State
On a fateful Sunday morning, I hadn’t finish recovering from my little illness but I was feeling strong and motivated to visit a tourist centre in Nigeria. As usual, with the savings from my school pocket money, I funded myself and a friend to visit the Agulu lake – I have heard so much about it (I vividly remember when I dreamt about visiting Agulu lake about six(6)months ago), so I decided to go and see for myself .
Deep inside of me, I wanted to see a real life crocodile. But, I wasn’t too sure if I would get to see any, due to the fact that they might not come to the top of the water. Nevertheless, I was optimistic and told myself that even if I don’t get to see any, I will get to learn about the origin of the lake so that I can write it here and educate other Nigerians.
To my greatest surprise, I saw the head of something that looked like a crocodile. WOW! At least I can now have a real life shot of it, it swam closer to the shore and we gave a distance – we actually ran for our dear lifes.
This the little information I got about the lake;
Location
The Lake is located at Umuowelle Village, Agulu town of Aniocha LGA, Anambra State.
How was it formed?
It was an opportunity for me to meet some elders in Agulu who actually told me the story (myths/legends) about the origin of the Lake, and here it goes;
Once upon a time, about some 500 years ago, a man (visitor) came to Umuowelle village in Agulu and met the elders of the community because he wanted to buy a very large piece of land from them. When he came, they welcomed him with kolanuts, tin of snuff, palm wine, etc.
According to the story, the man (visitor) has very long beards (Mustache). So, the elders of Umuowelle village brought water for him to wash his hand but the visitor told them that he has a lot of water. Immediately, he touched /drew his beards (Mustache) and a lot of water began to come out of it – this made the elders of the village very surprised.
In those days, people were more charitable and large hearted, and because of that, they gave him the land he asked for.
After the whole breaking and eating of Kolanuts, the visitor left. Then, after Izu n’ato (three weeks), the visitor came back and invited the elders to supervise the land, and when they got to the site, they found out that the trees had dried up and were falling; the elders were surprised but at the same time, they applauded him and asked him to go ahead with the construction of the land.
Later that day, the visitor took them to a small area where they saw a small pool of water. In the pool, they saw Azu (fishes) and Aguiyi (crocodiles), so, the visitor asked the elders to choose between the fish and crocodile on which they prefer – the elders choose Fishes.So, the visitor told the elders since that since they choose fishes, that the crocodile is his child and nobody should touch or kill it. They agreed to the friendly treaty, and the visitor also promised them that the pool of water will continually provide them with fishes and will never drown anybody, but upon certain conditions which are
- NOT KILLING ANY CROCODILE
- THEY WILL ALWAYS FEED THE CROCODILES
When the villagers choose fishes, the small pool of water began to develop and cover the rest part of the large piece of land and that was what formed the AGULU LAKE.
The story has it that, since the elders and the visitor agreed on that treaty, they didn’t see him again. But the people believe he wasn’t just a human being but a god that was sent.
From the information gathered, this agreement was been kept up until the period of the Nigerian Civil war (Biafran War) where because of extreme hunger, some of the Biafran army began killing the crocodiles to eat as food.
Uses of the lake
People do not swim in the water anymore, because if you swim in the Agulu Lake for too long, you will begin to urinate blood.
Meanwhile, some fishermen still catch fishes at the lake, but they stay at the shore of the water and not canoeing inside because of the fear of the crocodiles.
Since crocodiles aren’t killed, it all sums up to the benefits of protecting bio-diversity.
Does the crocodiles bite?
Of-course they do! Because since the Biafran warriors killed crocodiles, it broke the covenant and this has made the crocodiles wild and willing to kill. But, before the covenant was broken, the crocodiles were never harmful – they never get to bite anybody. Well, people don’t kill the crocodiles today anymore.
That was all I could gather, you can share your thoughts below. You can also read about my visit to Ogbunike Cave by clicking here
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