Psychiatry is the branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness.
When discussing about this field of medicine in Nigeria, Olayinka Omigbodun, is likely to spring up.
Omigbodun is the first female professor of psychiatry in Nigeria. Even though she “never planned to be provost” she became the first female provost, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo State.
She is married to Professor Akinyinka Omigbodun, a former provost of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan (UI).
She attended St. Louis Grammar School, Ibadan, and the International School Ibadan for her Ordinary and Advanced Levels.
Olayinka is the daughter of late Lt. Col Victor Banjo. Her father was executed over his alleged involvement in the coup against the late Biafran leader, Odumegwu Ojukwu.
Her family except her father moved to Sierra Leone before the civil war and returned after the war. The civil war started on July 6, 1967, and ended on January 15, 1970.
Well before she even qualified as a psychiatrist, there were several prominent female psychiatrists in Nigeria.
The first female psychiatrist in Nigeria was Dr Bertha Johnson, who worked at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos.
There was also Major General (Dr) Aderonke Kale, who was a female psychiatrist with the Nigerian Army.
Dr. Taiwo Adamson was also the first female president of the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria, and also the first female provost and medical director of Aro Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Olayinka began a career in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and mental health in 1986 at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.
She had further residency training in General Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Lancaster Moor Hospital, Lancaster also at the Queen’s Park Hospital, Blackburn, in the United Kingdom.
She also had training in Family Therapy at the Department of Family Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and was also a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Bipolar Research Unit.
Professor Olayinka studied at the Nuffield Institute for Health, University of Leeds where she had her Masters in Public Health in 1999 through the University of Ibadan MacArthur Foundation-funded Staff Development Programme.
She furthered her studies in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Greenwood Institute for Child Health, University of Leicester, UK in 2004.
Olayinka revealed in an interview that she “joined the University of Ibadan as a psychiatry lecturer, and honourary consultant to the University College Hospital, Ibadan, in 1997”.
She became a professor in 2008.
However, it wasn’t an all smooth ride for her. According to her, she became a qualified psychiatrist in 1991 but the university would not give me a job. Fortunately, her husband got a fellowship position in the United States in 1993, “so I travelled to the US with the family. I did not take up an academic position with the university until I returned in 1997”.
“I must note that I probably became the first female professor of psychiatry in the country because women practising in the field were not many initially. However, we now have many women practising.”
Professor Olayinka’s recollection of her father’s execution
My father was arrested from work on January 17, 1966, after the first coup in Nigeria led by (Kaduna) Nzeogwu.
He was not aware of the coup; and people, including those involved in the coup, said he did not know about it. He was initially put in a prison at Ikot Ekpene (in today’s Akwa Ibom), and was later imprisoned in Enugu State.
When the war broke out, he was in Enugu. He was released from prison by Ojukwu. He fought for one Nigeria, in his own understanding, on the side of the Biafran army, because of certain beliefs he had, which was clearly stated in our jointly authored book, A Gift of Sequins: Letters To My Wife. The book contains his prison letters to my mother; and I added a prologue and epilogue.
In the book, he stated that he was unhappy with the killings of the Igbos around the nation. He also wrote about northern domination of the nation. He believed in one Nigeria, which was stated in all the letters he wrote to my mum.
However, at a point, there was a disagreement between him and Ojukwu, who was his friend. We later learnt Ojukwu ordered his execution. At the time my father was executed, I was very young, and we (family) were already in Sierra Leone. My mother broke the news to us by telling us that ‘our dad had gone to be with Jesus’.
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