Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh was a leading metabolic physician in Nigeria. He was born in Lagos, Nigeria, the second of the six children of Julius Gordon Kwasi Adadevoh, a company director and accountant from the Royal House, Anyako, Ghana, and Sarah Abigail Idowu Adadevoh née Macaulay), daughter of the Nigerian nationalist Herbert Macaulay.
He was educated at the Baptist Academy and Igbobi College, Lagos, and then, on a Federal Government of Nigeria scholarship, studied medicine at University College, Ibadan, and the University of Birmingham. He held house posts in Birmingham, at the General Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and then went on to the Postgraduate Medical School and the Hammersmith Hospital in London, where he was house physician to T R C Fraser [Munk’s Roll, Vol.X, p.149]. Between 1962 and 1964 he was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School and at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.
In 1964 he returned to Nigeria, as lecturer and then senior lecturer in medicine at the University of Lagos. Four years later, he was appointed as professor of chemical pathology at the University of Ibadan. He then directed a research and training programme in reproductive biomedicine at the University of Ibadan, gaining grants from the Population Council and the World Health Organization. In 1976, he was appointed as the first director of medical research and secretary to the Medical Research Council of Nigeria. In November 1978, he became vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos and, for the year 1981, was professor of chemical pathology at the relatively young College of Medical Sciences at the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria.
He served on editorial boards of a number of journals in the medical sciences and was the first editor-in-chief of the Nigerian Journal of Medical Sciences. He was the first secretary to the Nigerian Medical Council Board in Physic (Medicine), the forerunner of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria, which introduced the fellowship programme of specialisation for Nigerian doctors in internal medicine.
He was widely travelled and was an expert consultant and adviser in various capacities to the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, the Commonwealth West African Health Secretariat (now West African Health Organization), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was a captivating and erudite speaker, and was in high demand as an invited speaker nationally and internationally.
A prolific author, he wrote papers and publications in clinical medicine, health care systems, clinical trials of drugs, human nutrition and metabolism, clinical chemistry and biochemistry, nuclear medicine, endocrinology, human reproduction and population problems, and in the management of resources for research and research training. He also wrote the book Sub-fertility and infertility in Africa (Ibadan, Caxton Press West Africa, c.1974).
He was a gregarious, dapper and outgoing man. He played very elegant cricket, receiving full colours for his school, university and the Nigerian national team. He married Deborah Regina McIntosh in Lagos in 1956. They had four children, three daughters and a son.
Sonny F Kuku