It is no longer news that the renowned surgeon and Medical Director of Awojobi Clinic, Eruwa, Dr. Yombo Awojobi, is
The death of renowned surgeon and Medical Director of Awojobi Clinic, Eruwa, Dr. Yombo Awojobi, on Saturday, April 18, 2015, marked the end of a remarkable career devoted to medicine and community service.
Awojobi, who was 64 at the time of his death, was widely known in Eruwa and across the Ibarapa region of Oyo State for his medical practice and the services provided through his clinic.
Beyond his work as a surgeon, however, his life was also shaped by a family tradition of academic and professional achievement.
Born Oluyombo Adetilewa Awojobi on March 1, 1951, the medical practitioner hailed from Ikorodu, Lagos State. He was a member of a family whose children distinguished themselves in different professional fields.
One of his elder brothers was the late Professor Ayodele Awojobi, the renowned mechanical engineer and academic whose innovative work earned him recognition in Nigeria and beyond.
Among Professor Ayodele Awojobi’s notable inventions was the Autonov I, an experimental vehicle designed with a second steering mechanism at the rear.
The design enabled the vehicle to move in both directions using its gears and was conceived, among other things, with possible military applications in mind.
Another of Yombo Awojobi’s brothers, Dr. Olubusola Awojobi, was a structural engineer. He served as President of the Nigerian Institute of Structural Engineers after being inaugurated into the position in 2012. He had also been associated with structural designs used in bridge construction in the United Kingdom.
The Awojobi siblings shared an educational foundation that began in Lagos. Yombo attended Methodist School, Oshodi, Lagos, between 1957 and 1962, before proceeding to Lagos Anglican Boys’ Grammar School, Bariga, and later CMS Grammar School, Lagos, where he completed his secondary education between 1963 and 1969.
He gained admission to the University of Ibadan to study Medicine in 1970 and completed the programme in 1975.
Following his graduation, Awojobi undertook his housemanship at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, between 1975 and 1976. He subsequently completed the mandatory National Youth Service Corps programme in Benue State before returning to UCH in 1977 for his surgical residency, which he completed in 1983.
His professional career was accompanied by several academic and community honours.
Among the recognitions attributed to him were the Best Student at O’ Level in the 1967 Principal’s Annual Awards and the Best Student at A’ Level in 1969. In 1975, he received the Adeola Odutola Prize for the Best Final-Year Student in Medicine.
His later honours included being named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of Nigeria by the Nigeria Jaycees in 1985 and being elected a member of the New York Academy of Sciences that same year.
In 1988, he received the Oyo State Merit Award for Rural Medical Practice. He was also awarded a British Council Travel Fellowship in 1995 and received the Eruwa Youth Movement Merit Award for Public Service and Job Creation in Eruwa.
The College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, later honoured him for his contributions to the sustenance of the Ibarapa Community Health Project in 1997.
His involvement in community health services also earned him a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Nigeria Award for medical coverage during its annual camping programme in Eruwa in 1998.
In 2000, the Eleruwa of Eruwa and the people of the community conferred on him the chieftaincy title of Baasegun of Eruwa, recognising his contributions to the community.
A year later, he received a special award from the Pan-African Liberation International Project as a defender of the less privileged.
His name was also included in the 2003 edition of Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering. In 2005, he was reportedly one of only two Nigerians featured in the World Medical Association publication Caring Physicians of the World.
For many residents of Eruwa and the wider Ibarapa community, Awojobi’s legacy extended beyond the honours attached to his name. His medical practice and community-oriented approach had made him a familiar figure to people who sought medical care in the area.
His death on April 18, 2015, therefore represented not only the loss of a medical practitioner but also the passing of a prominent member of the Eruwa community whose professional life had become closely associated with rural healthcare and service to others.
Source: The Anchor Online
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