Land of twins

The road leads to Igbo-Ora, a quiet agricultural town in southwestern Nigeria, welcoming visitors with a proud sign: " The land of twins ".

" It's hard to find a family here without twins, " said Olayide Akinyemi, 71, a regional official. His father himself has 10 pairs of twins and Olayide Akinyemi alone has 3 pairs, among his 12 children. But only one pair of the opposite sex survived.

A pair of twins in Igbo-Ora.(Photo: AFP)

According to a 1995 study by Belgian expert Fernand Leroy, the worldwide probability of twin births was about 0.5%. However, West Africa far exceeds this figure, especially the proportion of other egg twins, compared to Europe or Japan. That's especially true in the Yoruba community in Nigeria, the main ethnic group of the town of Igbo-Ora.

Overall, Yoruba's twins account for 5%, compared with only 1.2% for Western Europeans and 0.8% for Japanese.

The cause is " root "?

Some experts from Europe and West Africa say that eating tubers may be the cause of this common twins . Magnetic tubers contain a natural phytoestrogen hormone, which can stimulate both ovaries to produce at the same time.

For their part, Igbo-Ora residents seem to be confused as well. Some people like Akinyemi support the scientists' hypothesis."We eat a lot of okro leaves or Ilasa soup. We also eat a lot of agida (the local name of the root). That diet produces twins , " he said.

However, the "real cause of this phenomenon has not been found medically" , a senior obstetrician adviser at the Teaching University Hospital in Ibadan, the nearest major town, said.

The chief nurse of Muyibi Yomi Hospital, who once recorded five monthly births on average in about 100 births, said the cause was due to genes."If a family has a twin birth history, it will continue from generation to generation."

T. An