Akin Adesola came to Belfast in 1953 to study medicine. He graduated in 1956, did a year of  academic surgery at the Royal Hospital, then a postgraduate course between Belfast and London. In Belfast he stayed with the Gardiner family; his mentors were Prof Harold Rodgers and Prof. Richard Welbourn; his co-students were Sam Meshida (engineering) and George Johnston (medicine).

After returning to Nigeria, Akin Adesola became a lecturer at the University College Hospital Ibadan, then at the University of Lagos Medical School where he became Professor and head of Department in 1967. Followed a most successful national and international carreer which led him to become, among others, the Vice-Chancellor of the university of Ilorin and of the University of Lagos. Over the years he received many awards, one of which was an Honorary Doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast in 1989 – the first such doctorate for an African. In his later days, Prof. Adesola wrote his autobiography entitled A Bridge Endowed.