Prof J. P. Clark: The man, his art and things not said

Late J.P Clark

Published By: Ayorinde Oluokun

By Nehru Odeh

Many know him as Professor John Pepper Clark- Bekeredemo. But he chose to be known simply as J.P. Clark. And that is the name that has not only stuck but has also, through his inimitable works, earned him an eternal place among literary greats in the firmament of stars.

And yet not only did that name precede him while he was alive, it has outlived him and continues to elicit awe and reverence across the globe, even when he has transited.

This is the story of a literary giant whose poetry is indeed music to the ears. This is the story of a man who, according to Professor Niyi Osundare in a poem dedicated to him, “was born with a paddle in one hand and a pen in the other.”

This is the story of a man whose love for his Izon people of the Niger Delta is so palpable and he lived and reflected it in his writings. And many across the globe still draw enormously from the fountain of knowledge that is his oeuvre

This is the story of a man who lived ahead of his time, what with the inimitable lyricism of his poetry, the simple complexity of his craft and the sheer depth and profundity of his plays, thus making his immortality assured. Yet there is no end to his hindsight and what his writings continue to reveal.

It was for these and many other reasons that his family, scholars and former students converged on the University of Lagos between 9 and 11 October, 2024 to celebrate him at the 2nd J.P. Clark International Conference.

The theme of the three-day intellectually- stimulating conference, which was kick-started at the boardroom of the Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos was: “JP Clark and Studies in the Humanities: Decolonizing the Colonial and Post-colonial Modernity.”

And indeed the conference lived up to expectations as not only was it heavy on intellectual discourses, scholars unearthed many ideas and motifs in his works that had hitherto not been revealed and which still speaks to contemporary times. Prof Okolo

Present at the opening ceremony were Prof. J. P. Clark’s wife, Professor Ebun Clark, one of the co-conveners of the conference whom Professor Patrick Okolo aptly described as the matriarch of the Clark’s family; her children, Mr Elaye and Ms Ema Clark; Professor Ayodele Victoria Atsenuwa Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, who represented the Vice Chancellor, Professor Folasade Ogunsola; Dean of Arts, Prof. Akanbi Mudashiru Ilupeju; as well as Acting Head, Department of English, Professor Abiodun Adeniji (represented).

Hope Eghagha, Professor of English at the University of Lagos and co-convener of the conference, who delivered the keynote entitled: “Disappearing Boundaries, New Intersections and the Future of Literature,” spoke from the United Kingdom via Zoom.

Declaring the conference open, Prof. Atsenuwa set the ball rolling when she said studying JP Clark as well as the significance of his works was very insightful for this present generation. She also said the theme of the conference, Decolonizing the Colonial and the Post-colonial African Modernity was very critical

“That is why studying a man like J.P. Clark studying him in context, understanding the world as it was, the world of humanities as he experienced it is certainly going to be insightful for this generation.

“All of us who are here can only share his world through his studies, through his published works, through the reflections, philosophies and perspectives that he shared.

“But we can benefit from that world in interrogating our present. And that is why it is very apt that this event is happening. Decolonizing the colonial and the post-colonial African modernity is very critical. Africa modernity, what we know today, and how much of it is African, how much of is still carrying on with the baggage of colonialism.

“In fact the very concept of modernity is something that needs to be interrogated. I remember one of my lecturers said to me, it’s a whole continuum, colonialism, to modernism, to development to globalization. There is just one continuum. And we need to interrogate even what we call African modernity.

“So, I believe that this is a very, very important company and I have no doubt that the output will be significant in pushing knowledge forward. This is what we (the University of Lagos) were established to do -to groom knowledge in a way that we can shape the world that we are in for the better, Prof. Atsenuwa said.
Prof. Atsenuwa

Delivering the opening address, Acting Head, Department of English, Professor Abiodun Adeniji, spoke to not just the relevance of Clark’s works to contemporary times but also his immortality.

“To me a writer never dies.” Adeniji said. “He lives on in his works and in our minds. building bridges across the course of cultural diversity, racial disparities, political colouration and discolourations, religious schism and the trauma of lived experiences that now characterizes the African and Nigerian post colonial modernity.

“Therefore I challenge any one here to say that J.P. C. lark is dead when his spirit, the spirit of a father and sagacious ancestor, continues to inspire and guide not only the living but generations yet unborn along the path of rectitude, perseverance creative daring-do and positive atavism in this season of anomy when everything has fallen apart.”

Professor Akanbi Mudashiru Ilupeju, in his speech, went down memory lane emphasizing the continual relevance of Prof. J. P. Clark, whose works he said he had read in secondary school.

“Today we are celebrating one of the foremost authors, poet and playwright whose work some of us read even in secondary school before we came to know him physically alongside the works of Professor Wole Soyinka, , Chinua Achebe. We may not have had the opportunity of seeing them physically , we read them and we also share part of their legacy, ” he said.

Prof. Ebun Clark, who was palpably appreciative of the honour done to her husband in a terse speech, expressed her appreciation to the Department of English and the University of Lagos for continually keeping his legacies alive. She also spoke about J.P. Clark’s pioneering developmental efforts as the Head of the Department of English, UNILAG.

“I’m really overwhelmed by the love shown to my husband by the department of English and the Faculty of Arts. I thank you very much. He was indeed a pioneer member of staff of this faculty. And the University had to reappoint almost 90 per cent of staff. That is how we all came. And he became the Head of English continuously from 1969 to 1977, with only a one-year break. He developed the department from membership of six to 22. So, I think the department owes a lot of its progress and development in terms of content and staff to my husband, ” Prof Ebun Clark noted.

In line with the theme of the conference, Professor Hope Eghagha delivered a virtual Keynote Lecture entitled: “Disappearing Boundaries, New Intersections, and the Future of Literature.” In that keynote, Prof. Eghagha made use of virtual reality to marshal out his points as it appeared he was speaking beside a flowing river.

Still, Prof. Eghagha interrogated the changing landscape of literature in the light of technological advancements and charged universities to embrace the change in order to remain relevant. He affirmed that “Literature can only survive if readership is guaranteed”.

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He also challenged the audience to look at the impact of the digital on the traditional humanities and the way it is experienced, adding that in the face of the corrosive influences of new digital devices, the human agent or intellectual ownership and copyright are not only becoming ineffectual but also democratized and sometimes erased.

“Social media mediates literature, just as literature interrogates social media in a sense. It is a symbiotic relationship. Yet the odds seem to be in favour of social media. Despite these contestations which I have alluded to, I daresay that there will be increased focus on marginalized voices and perspectives because more persons will struggle to have heir voices heard.

“We are beginning to see this in the introduction of AI generated content and collaborative storytelling. As the rise of immersive and interactive storytelling experience, globalization of free markets and online platforms, and so in the comfort of my home in Mereje, produce a work, publish it online and somebody around the world reads it and publishes it and markets it and through collaborative efforts get financial rewards for that which I have written, without stepping across the international boundaries physically,” Prof. Eghagha said.

Prof. Eghagha also referenced the huge divide between the demands engendered by technological advancement and the new normal such as Artificial Intelligence, the fluidity and ubiquity of social media techniques and what is currently being taught in Nigerian universities, adding that that divide needs to be bridged.. He then suggested that the curriculum needs to be revisited and rejigged.

“There is no correlation between the content generated by an individual who works online and what that student studied in the department. What this suggests to us is that we need o revisit our curriculum, which is what we are trying to do with the department of English, especially with the Year One students.

At the Plenary Lecture (Reminiscences on J.P Clark), which followed immediately after the Opening Ceremony, Professor Patrick Okolo, who chaired that session was in conversation with Professor Ebun Clark, who gave the lecture. That session, themed “Decolonizing the Content: The Case of Song of a Goat”, turned out to be revelatory as both scholars not only interrogated Clark’s play, “The Song of a Goat”, but offers fresh insights into it.

MS Clark
Prof. Okolo started the session by offering the audience glimpses into the play, which as Prof. Ebun rightly observed has not been given the attention it deserves, given not just its relevance to contemporary times but also the issues the text problematizes and the solution it proffers, which indeed was far ahead of the time in which the play was first produced.

“It is just a story of infertility. You can see how very ordinary subjects are given such very great significance in literature. Because the job of literature is to elevate normalcy through the imagination, the imagining capacity of the writer or the playwright. And that is exactly what has happened, “Prof. Okolo said.

“Now In the story, Ebiere who is the wife of Zifa, is very fruitful or appears to look very fruitful like the fig tree in the Bible that Jesus cursed. You appear very fine and everything about you looks great. But there is no productivity, there is no fruits. Here the fruit is of course child, the children.

“Because she has not being given birth, because she is not fertile, she has to meet the masseur or babalawo. And of course the masseur or babalawo as we call it in Yoruba parlance, simply knows the problem immediately. And tells her what to do. She does not do it.

“Her husband returns to meet the masseur who has the prescription. But he turns down the prescription. And then Ebiere, having known what to do proceeds to do it. Without getting the formal consent of the masseur. And then what happens, she gets pregnant

“Since it is already established that her husband will not be capable of getting her pregnant, then the procedure is to pass her on to the husband’s brother who will do the business and then the children will pass on to him.

“Ebiere gets hold of these facts but does not do it in accordance with the cultural prescription and then proceeds to do it. And when her husband finds that she is already pregnant on account of doing it, he chases his brother and runs into the sea. The husband follows him but later returns and hangs himself, ” Prof. Okolo explained.
Prof. Akanbi Ilupeju

However, Prof. Ebun for her part, offered a fresh insight when she spoke about the silence in the play, the thing that is not said. But which according to her is a key word, which is very instrumental to unravelling the play.

“Our keynote was on silence, surrogacy, gender empowerment and storytelling. What do I mean by silence? If you look at the beginning of the play, we feel that the conversation tells us that something has happened for the last five years and we are almost at the end of the story. What’s the end? Ebiere goes to the local doctor, the traditional doctor, to have confirmed if anything is wrong with her fertility. her ability to conceive. She already by the way had a son.

“And the problem that the expatriate reader had in those days was that she already had a son, so what’s the problem of her fertility? Without realizing that in Africa, most women have seven or eight children because of infant mortality. Out of seven, most women believed, at least four may survive. Can you get my point? So if you have one, the likelihood of that one going is very strong. It is as bad as not having any children at all.

“So what is not said is how is it that she now comes to the male masseur? He would have gone to the female masseur. And if there is no female masseur in her community, she would have found one near enough. So, the case of fertility and I would say violence done to women is a subject of discourse, a very central subject.

“Now the female masseur, being a priestess, may not be the one who can tell her the remedy. They may know the remedy but they may not be able to carry out the remedy. Hence the male masseur who suggest to her the solution.

“And of course we know why Zifa became impotent. He was cursed. So, a key word in the play too is ‘curse’. His father was cursed for infraction of some traditional norms. Zifa himself was cursed for bringing his father from the evil forest. His father died of leprosy and he brought his father back to the community to bury him. So he was cursed. His aunty too was cursed. So that silence is there and you can hear it throughout the whole play.

“So what I feel is violence against the woman is that the masseur tells her what to do, not the man. Because he tells the man ‘we can take your young brother and give him to her.’ But he doesn’t tell him about the ritual that must be done.

“And yet it’s not her fault that they have infertility in the family. This is a fault of the man – erectile dysfunction. And you have a playwright – I think my husband was about 29 or so when he wrote the play – bringing to consciousness of literature through his play traditional values which was not here before, “ Prof. Ebun maintained.
Prof Ebun Clark

Prof. Okolo acquiesced with Prof Ebun’s intervention, saying that he had never thought about the silence in the play that she had just made known to the audience.

“This is really intriguing in the sense that we are seeing the text in which so many assumptions are beginning to collapse in the face of evidence. Honestly, I had never thought about the silence that Professor Clark has just simply made known to us today.

“I only looked at some of them as strategies to continue the plot for example, when the masseur does not speak in very clear terms to Zifa. I looked at the text and say if she spoke in clear terms to Zifa then there would be no basis for the plot to continue, ” Prof. Okolo said.

The Plenary Session concluded with a Q&A. And the conference continued with Parallel Panels, where conference participants made oral presentations of their submissions.