NIGERIAN TOWN WITH MULTIPLE TWINS, IGBO-ORA, CELEBRATES WORLD TWINS FESTIVAL

The royal father of the town, Oba Jimoh Olagunju Titiloye while speaking with journalists said that many research are still going on to unravel the mystery about twins in Igbo-Ora, adding that it might be either the environment or the food people of Igbo-Ora used to eat that makes it to be the World Twins Capital.

The Olu of Igbo-Ora  noted that a study conducted by a British gynecologist, Patrick Nylander, between 2972 – 1982 recorded an average of 45 to 50 sets of twins per 1,000 live birth in the Southwest of Nigeria, and there are about 30 times more in Igbo-Ora than there are in the whole of Europe.

“According to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) article, there are about 158 twins per 2,000 newborn in Igbo-ora, the twins capital of the world compare to 5 twins per 1,000 newborns in Europe’, the monarch stated.

“Population expert has a history of giving birth to twins or other multiples also affirm that Nigeria, particularly the Southwest has the World highest twin rate and the Igbo Ora , the headquarters of Ibarapa Central Local Government has the highest percentage of twins’, he stated.

“In Igbo-ora, nearly every household has a history of giving birth to twins or other multiples, people attributed the predominance of twins in Igbo-Ora to a meal, Amala and Ilasa, a morsel meal that combines yam powder (agida) and okra leave soup, yams contain gonadotrophins, a chemical that helps women produce multiple eggs’.

“This festival which started last year is therefore, designed to position Oyo State as the foremost twin tourism destination in the world, initiate the development of twin festival as a unique sponsorship property and create activity around Igbo-Ora towards attracting of Pilgrimage to the “land of twins” or “World Twins Capital” and improving the economy of the town and neighboring Local Government Areas in particular and Oyo State in General, consequently the first Twin Resort in the world will be created in Igbo-Ora’.

Penpushing further reports that, the Chairman of the event, Dr. Olusola Ayadele, said that the twin festival was just the beginning of renaissance, adding that twins have been celebrated all over the world, and it has now become a tourism event in the whole of Ibarapa land.

“Here in Igbo-Ora, almost every family has twins, and this does not happen anywhere except in Igbo-Ora. I want to advice twins to continue to be good ambassador’, Ayadele, who was a Governorship aspirant in the last governorship election in Oyo State said

Penpushing also reports , the twin Ambassadors, Taiwo and Kehinde Oguntoye, noted that been a twin has brought a lot of good things for them because twins are unique creation from God, saying that the festival was aimed at adding to the economy benefit of Oyo State, and Nigeria at large.

“We are of the opinion that this twin festival can be used to boost the economy of Nigeria through twin tourism, this mean that this is a way by which twin can be used to promote destination, there is a need to developed our tourism potentials in Igbo-Ora, so we want the people to see the festival as an avenue to tap to its potentials’.

The twins however, noted that the challenges facing twins in Nigeria is basically economy, because most of the families with twins are not financially buoyant as the Europe care for them.

Penpushing reports that, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, in his remarks said that Yoruba believe that twins are unique creation from God because they possessed what other child/children don’t have.

 “Twins are unique creation that are very important, and we Yoruba’s also count them worthy, God created them in a unique ways because woman has only one womb to carry a baby, it now marvel for a womb that supposed to carry one child to now carried two’,Adeyemi stated.

“Yoruba believes that giving birth to twins brings joy and happiness to the family that is why everybody wants to associate with them either having them as children or as an associate, this makes them to have an adoring names that is different from all other children.

“Some of our forefathers have done some things that someone has never done before, there was a particular Alaafin of Oyo, whose seven wives got pregnant at the same time and all of his seven pregnant wives gave birth to a male set of twins, the seven twins all together in turn thereafter gave birth to 54 children and that Alaafin built a palace for all of them;, the monarch said.

“All traditional rulers should teach their people history about their father’s land and their community, if you become king, and I teach and showed you the mystery in history of Yoruba land, the more you get it, the more you will have promotion and peace of mind, the ‘Isokun’ that was eulogized in the glorification of twins is in Oyo town’.