THOMAS ADEOYE LAMBO

Background

LAMBO, Thomas Adeoye was born on March 29, 1923 in Abeokuta. Son of the late Chief David Basil Lambo and Felicia Lambo.

Education

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, University Birmingham, 1948. Doctor of Medicine, University Birmingham, 1954. Postgraduate, London University Institute Psychiatry.

Diploma in Psychological Medicine, England, 1953. Degree (honorary), Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, 1967. Degree, Kent (Ohio) State University, 1969.

Degree, Birmingham University, 1971. Degree, University Benin, 1973. Degree, University d'Aix-Marseilles (France), 1974.

Degree, Long Island University, 1975. Degree, Louvain University, Belgium, 1976. Degree, McGill University, Montreal, 1978.

Degree, University Jos, Nigeria, 1979. Degree, University Nigeria, Nsukka, 1979. Degree, Hacettepe University, Ankara, 1980.

Degree, Hahnemann University, Philadelphia, 1984. Degree, University Pennsylvania, 1985.

Career

He is credited as the first western trained psychiatrist in Nigeria and Africa. Between 1971 and 1988, he worked at the World Health Organization, becoming the agency"s Deputy Director General. To further his studies and become specialized, in 1952, he enrolled at the Institute of Psychiatry, King"s College London.

In 1954, after studying and working as a surgeon in Britain, Doctor Lambo returned to Nigeria where he was soon made the specialist in charge at the newly built Aro psychiatric hospital, Abeokuta.

Prior to the independence movement, the Federal Government had tried to replicate the European system of creating asylums in the cities for lunatics and mentally ill individuals who were regarded as a social nuisance in the streets of many urban areas. The need to put the social anomalous individuals under control, sometimes care and confinement was initiated and a few asylums including one at Yaba were built.

Adeoye Lambo sensing a ground for development, used the opportunity of an independent regional government to start his own out-patient treatment services, the Aro village, pioneering the use of modern curative techniques combined with traditional religion and native medicines. Adeoye, while at Aro, sought the help of farmers near the asylum to take some of the patients as laborers, while they simultaneously underwent medical treatment, and the patients also paid for any extra services required, such as housing.

He traveled around the country and brought in a few traditional healers from different parts of Nigeria as practitioners.

His style helped relieve public mistrust of mental health hospitals and introduced to public discourse the care and treatment of mentally ill citizens. He is credited as providing a platform for re-integrating mentally ill patients into a normal setting and environment and to a certain extent shedding at least some of the stigma associated with those suffering from mental illness.

Achievements

• Thomas Adeoye Lambo has been listed as a noteworthy psychiatrist by Marquis Who's Who.

Politics

By then, Nigeria was undergoing a transition towards political independence which had hastened a culture of innovation and change instead of a period of feared stagnation or even regression. However, the institutionalization of mental health was viewed with suspicion by many Nigerians and many still depended on native medicines and herbalists for care.

Membership

Fellow: Royal College Physicians (Edinburgh). Member: Mexican Institute Culture (fellow member correspondent in Nigeria), West African Council Medical Research, Africian Academy of Sciences (founding member), Third World Academy of Sciences, Pontificial Academy of Sciences, Swiss Academy Medical Science (honorary), Nigeria Medical Council, International Society for Study Human Development (co-chairman since 1968), International College Tropical Medicine (chairman 1966-1970), World Federation Mental Health (executive committee since 1964), Science Council for Africa (chairman 1965).

Interests

• Collection of ethnographic material on Africa, of art of traditional and tribal religions, and of ancient books on the history of medicine, on literature and philosophy.

Connections

Married Dinah Violet Adams. Children: David, Richard and Roger (twins).

Father:

David Basil Lambo

Mother:

Felicia (Bolawa) Lambo

Spouse:

Dinah Violet Adams Lambo

child:

Richard Lambo

child:

Roger Lambo

child:

David Lambo