Professor L.A.Salako annual memorial lecture: A tribute
Today’s inaugural lecture put together by former students, benefactors and associates of Emeritus Professor Salako to celebrate his wonderful life is coming under the auspices of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CPT) Forum of Nigeria.
Consequently, a few words seem appropriate on this website dedicated to his memory as Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
To start with, I never meet the Professor in life but first heard of him in 1988 in faraway Sydney, Australia from Dr. Anthony Smith, then Professor in Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at University of New Castle Medical School, NSW, Australia, and now Emeritus Professor in his nineties. As soon as we were introduced with me as being from Nigeria he almost instantaneously animated and chatted so fondly and in glowing terms of Professor Salako’s pioneering research in Nigeria.
This encounter motivated my traveling to Ibadan while on a short vacation home to Nigeria in 1989 in an attempt to meet the Professor. Incidentally, the pioneer Head of Medicine Department, University of Ilorin, Professor John Hamilton, had at about that time moved to NSW as Dean and was experimenting with the COBES philosophy of training medical doctors pioneered by the founding fathers of University of Ilorin medical school of which he was part of.
This was to have the unintended consequence of extending the MB; BS programme by one year thus virtually ensuring no intern was available in 1988/1989 throughout NSW Australia including at the A/E department of Royal North Shore Hospital St. Leonards, where I was working part time as Fellow in Hypertension/Clinical Pharmacology. Unfortunately, at that visit to Ibadan I was not fortunate to meet him as a colleague of his gave the information that the Professor was away on a national assignment.
Professor Salako is widely described as pioneering indigenous research into Malaria Pharmacology, Treatment and putting University of Ibadan on the global map in that respect as the opportunity came along.
What is however less well talked about was that his body of research very early on through a series of elegant and simple experimental designs appropriate to the local situation established that standard interventions that worked best in non-African groups in Europe and America was less so in Nigerian groups. What is even more striking was the candor of reporting unexpected findings completely at variance with existing clinical practice not always in the best interest of marketing agenda even when the study was funded by parties operating in Nigeria health sector for profits. This is something increasingly absent in contemporary academic research into hypertension therapy. Professor Salako along with others set the tone upon which scholars coming after built upon.
May God continue to keep his memory alive through his scholarship actively bent to serve the best interest of Nigeria and its people.
Congratulations to the family he left behind who should take pride in his achievements captured for all time in his published works.
Okoro EO, MB; B.Ch (Nigeria)
Professor in Medicine
University of Ilorin
Nigeria
14 November 2022
eookoro@unilorin.edu.ng

Happy posthumous birthday Sir.
I remember you specially today as usual.
I came into academics soon after you retired but that did not stop you from mentoring me. You were a wonderful mentor and i dare say father.
Going into academics rather late, God had it all sorted out and knew I needed your mentoring and he put you right there.

You gently nudged me on, provided opportunities I might never have been able to access, monitoring and ensuring i did things right. I remember how delighted you ere when I got the Chair of the UI in Pharmacology. You were visibly excited when I was elected Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science.
Continue to rest in peace. Amen. 

I am honored to have met you and grateful to be part of your wonderful family. May God have mercy and rest in peace you are truly missed, Amin.
My thoughts are with Mummy S today.