In southwestern Nigeria, there is a town where the arrival of twins is so deeply woven into everyday life that it has become part of the community’s identity.
The town is Igbo-Ora, in Oyo State, popularly known as Nigeria’s “Home of Twins.”
The reputation is not simply a colourful story passed from one generation to another. Igbo-Ora has attracted scientific attention because of the unusually high frequency of dizygotic twins, commonly known as fraternal or non-identical twins.
A 2025 study reported a dizygotic twinning rate of about 45 twin births per 1,000 live births in Igbo-Ora, placing the community among the populations with exceptionally high recorded rates of fraternal twinning.
But the most intriguing part of the story is not simply the number of twins.
It is the mystery surrounding why they are so common.
The Twin Phenomenon That Made Igbo-Ora Famous
Twins are not unusual in themselves. They are born in communities across the world.
What makes Igbo-Ora remarkable is the unusually high occurrence of dizygotic twinning.
Dizygotic twins develop when two eggs are fertilised by two different sperm cells during the same reproductive cycle. They therefore share the same biological relationship as ordinary siblings and may be either the same sex or different sexes.
This is different from identical twins, who develop from a single fertilised egg that later divides.
The distinction is important because researchers studying Igbo-Ora are particularly interested in the unusually high occurrence of fraternal twins.
And that has raised a question that has intrigued researchers for decades.
What is happening in this particular community that makes double births so frequent?
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Is the Secret Really in the Food?
One of the most popular explanations surrounding Igbo-Ora involves food.
Local residents have traditionally associated the town’s high rate of twin births with certain foods, particularly okra leaves used in a traditional soup called ilasa.
Yam has also frequently appeared in discussions about the phenomenon.
Some scientific hypotheses have considered whether naturally occurring compounds in local foods could influence reproductive processes, including ovulation. However, the idea that yam or okra leaves directly cause twins has not been scientifically established.
This distinction is important.
The foods are part of the local explanation and have generated scientific interest, but they should not be presented as a proven cause of Igbo-Ora’s high twinning rate.
The mystery is much more complicated.
Ilasa: The Traditional Soup at the Centre of Local Belief
For many people in Igbo-Ora, the explanation is not simply about eating yam.
Ilasa, a traditional soup made with okra leaves, features prominently in local accounts of the town’s twins.
Research examining community perceptions found that residents frequently mentioned ilasa when explaining why twins were so common in Igbo-Ora.
Some accounts also connected the food with amala, traditionally made from cassava flour, while other local explanations included the town’s water and environment.
These beliefs are important because they reveal how the community itself has interpreted a phenomenon observed across generations.
But a cultural explanation and a scientific explanation are not necessarily the same thing.
There is currently no conclusive evidence demonstrating that ilasa causes multiple ovulation or directly produces twins.
Why Do People Also Talk About the Water?
The story becomes even more intriguing when water enters the picture.
Some residents have traditionally believed that the water available in Igbo-Ora contributes to the town’s high frequency of twin births.
The belief is sometimes connected to the preparation of local foods, particularly ilasa.
The reasoning behind the tradition is understandable. If a food were solely responsible, why would people who ate similar foods outside Igbo-Ora not necessarily experience the same frequency of twin births?
This is a local observation and belief rather than established scientific evidence.
Nevertheless, it became part of the community’s explanation of its unusual reproductive pattern.
It also illustrates something fascinating about traditional knowledge.
Long before scientists began studying the phenomenon, local people were already observing patterns in food, family, environment and reproduction.
Could Twins Run in the Family?
Another important part of the story is heredity.
Dizygotic twinning can have a genetic component. Some women have a greater natural tendency to release more than one egg during ovulation, increasing the possibility of fraternal twins.
This helps explain why families with repeated occurrences of fraternal twins can sometimes be observed across generations.
Residents of Igbo-Ora have also described families in which twins occur repeatedly.
That has made heredity one of the important factors considered when researchers examine the town’s unusual twinning pattern.
Yet genetics alone has not provided a complete answer.
Scientists are still interested in understanding how genetic factors may interact with environmental and reproductive factors within populations where dizygotic twinning occurs at unusually high rates.
Igbo-Ora Is Part of a Bigger Yoruba Story
The phenomenon is not entirely isolated to Igbo-Ora.
Historically, unusually high rates of dizygotic twinning have been documented among Yoruba populations in southwestern Nigeria.
This makes the story even more interesting.
Igbo-Ora is not simply a random Nigerian town where twins happen to be common. It forms part of a wider population pattern that has attracted scientific interest.
Researchers have therefore looked beyond individual foods and considered questions involving population genetics, reproductive biology, nutrition and environment.
Igbo-Ora offers an especially interesting setting for investigating those questions because of the town’s extraordinary reputation and documented history of multiple births.
Twins Have Deep Cultural Meaning Among the Yoruba
There is another layer to Igbo-Ora’s story that has nothing to do with laboratory research.
Twins have historically held a distinctive place in Yoruba culture.
Known as ìbejì, twins have been associated with particular cultural and spiritual traditions.
Historically, Yoruba communities developed distinctive practices surrounding twin births, reflecting the special significance attached to twins and their families.
This cultural history helps explain why Igbo-Ora’s large twin population has become more than a biological curiosity.
For the people of the town, twins are part of the social and cultural fabric of the community.
The town did not merely acquire a reputation for having twins.
It gradually developed an identity around it.
When Thousands of Twins Gathered in One Nigerian Town
That identity eventually became the foundation for a major cultural celebration.
In 2018, Igbo-Ora hosted a Twins Festival, attracting thousands of twins and visitors.
Contemporary reports stated that more than 2,000 sets of twins were registered for the event.
There were cultural performances, a twins’ parade, food displays, music and other activities designed to celebrate the town’s distinctive heritage.
It was an extraordinary transformation.
Something that had once been primarily a biological phenomenon had become a celebration of culture, community and identity.
Igbo-Ora’s twins were no longer simply something researchers counted.
They became something the community proudly celebrated.
The Twin Rate Has Not Always Been the Same
One of the lesser known facts about Igbo-Ora is that the frequency of multiple births has changed over time.
A 1986 study involving 71,773 maternities in Ibadan and Igbo-Ora reported a twinning rate of 23.8 per 1,000 maternities and recorded a substantial decline compared with earlier figures.
This historical change is significant because it makes simple explanations even less convincing.
The phenomenon cannot easily be reduced to one food or one ingredient.
Changes in diet, population movement, demographic patterns and other environmental factors have all been considered when examining changes in twinning rates.
The history therefore suggests that the mystery may involve several factors rather than a single cause.
What Scientists Are Looking For
Scientists studying high twinning rates are interested in several possible influences.
Genetics is one.
A woman’s inherited tendency toward hyperovulation, meaning the release of more than one egg during an ovulation cycle, can increase the likelihood of dizygotic twins.
Population history is another.
If particular genetic traits associated with dizygotic twinning become more common within a population, the frequency of fraternal twins may also be higher.
Nutrition and environment have also been investigated.
This is where traditional explanations about local foods become particularly interesting. They raise questions that can potentially be investigated scientifically.
But the existence of a hypothesis does not mean the hypothesis has been proven.
As of current research, there is no established single food, water source or environmental factor that explains Igbo-Ora’s extraordinary twinning rate.
Why the Yam and Okra Story Refuses to Disappear
The food explanation has survived because it connects an extraordinary biological phenomenon with something familiar.
People eat.
People grow crops.
Families pass recipes from one generation to another.
So when an entire community experiences an unusual pattern of twin births, it is natural for people to ask whether something in their environment or diet might be involved.
The stories about yam, okra leaves and ilasa therefore became part of the cultural memory of Igbo-Ora.
They also attracted scientific curiosity.
But the most responsible way to understand the story is not to declare that “yam causes twins” or “okra produces twins.”
The evidence does not establish that.
The more fascinating reality is that traditional observations have raised questions that modern science is still investigating.
A Mystery Where Culture and Science Meet
Igbo-Ora presents a rare meeting point between traditional knowledge and modern research.
Residents have their explanations.
Scientists have theirs.
Local traditions speak about food, water, ancestry, environment and divine blessing.
Scientific research investigates genetics, reproductive biology and other possible factors.
These perspectives belong to different systems of understanding, but together they form the larger story of Igbo-Ora.
And that is what makes the town so fascinating.
It is not simply a place where twins are common.
It is a community whose unusual biological history has become intertwined with its food, family structures, cultural traditions and identity.
The Real Wonder of Igbo-Ora
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Igbo-Ora is that modern science has not completely erased the mystery.
Researchers have documented the unusually high frequency of dizygotic twins.
They have investigated possible genetic, nutritional and environmental explanations.
Residents have preserved their own traditions and observations.
Yet no single explanation has solved the puzzle.
The town therefore remains one of Nigeria’s most intriguing examples of how a local phenomenon can become a subject of international scientific interest.
And the next time someone says that Igbo-Ora is simply famous because its people eat a lot of yam or okra, there is a much bigger story to tell.
There are the twins.
There is the food.
There is the family history.
There is Yoruba culture.
There is the science.
And somewhere in the middle of all of them lies a question that has fascinated people for generations:
Why does Igbo-Ora have so many twins?
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Author’s Note
Igbo-Ora’s story is one of Nigeria’s most fascinating examples of culture, history and science meeting in an unexpected place. The town’s exceptionally high frequency of fraternal twins has been documented in research, while generations of residents have connected the phenomenon with heredity, traditional foods such as okra leaves and ilasa, the local environment, water and spiritual beliefs. Scientific research has considered genetic and other biological factors, while possible links to local foods remain an area of interest rather than a proven explanation. What makes Igbo-Ora truly remarkable is not simply the number of twins born there, but the way those births have shaped the community’s identity and turned an unusual biological pattern into a celebrated part of Yoruba cultural heritage.
References
Fadoju, A. “Genetics, Diet or Divine Blessing? Local and Scientific Explanations for High Dizygotic Twinning in Igbo-Ora, Nigeria.” Twin Research and Human Genetics, 2025.
“Community Perceptions on Causes of High Dizygotic Twinning Rate in Igbo-Ora, South-West Nigeria: A Qualitative Study.” PLOS ONE, 2020.
Marinho, A. O., Ilesanmi, A. O., Ladele, O. A., Asuni, O. H., Omigbodun, A. O. and Oyejide, C. O. “A Fall in the Rate of Multiple Births in Ibadan and Igbo-Ora, Nigeria.” Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae, 1986.
The Nation Newspaper. “Oyo Celebrates Over 2,000 Twins at Twins Festival.” 2018.
The Nation Newspaper. “Celebrating Twins.” 2018.
