[1] In 1954, after studying and working as a surgeon in Britain, Lambo returned to Nigeria where he was soon made the specialist in charge at the newly built Aro Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Abeokuta.

[1] 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.

Before 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.

Lambo, sensing a ground for development, used the opportunity of an independent regional government to start his outpatient treatment services, the Aro village, pioneering the use of modern curative techniques combined with traditional religion and native medicines.

[3] Lambo was vice-chancellor at the University of Ibadan from 1967 to 1971,[4] during which a student, Adekunle Adepeju, was killed by the Nigerian Police Force at a protest.