Renowned Nigerian Professor, JP Clark Dies At 85

News Rain Nigeria Reports that the Emeritus Professor John Pepper Clark is dead.

Clark’s death was announced on Tuesday afternoon through a statement that was released to the effect by the Clark-Fuludu Bekederemo family of Kiagbodo Town, Delta State.

According to the statement which stated that the Emeritus Professor of Literature died at the early hour of today, Tuesday, 13th, October 2020.

Part of the statement read as thus: “Prof. J. P. Clark has paddled on to the great beyond in comfort of his wife, children, and sibling, around him.

“Other details will be announced later by the family.

Signed:

Prof. C. C. Clark, for the family; Mr. Ilaye Clark, for the children.”

Born in Kiagbodo, Nigeria, to an Ijaw father and Urhobo mother, Clark received his early education at the Native Authority School, Okrika (Ofinibenya-Ama), in Burutu LGA (then Western Ijaw) and the prestigious Government College in Ughelli, and his BA degree in English at the University of Ibadan, where he edited various magazines, including the Beacon and The Horn.

Upon graduation from Ibadan in 1960, he worked as an information officer in the Ministry of Information, in the old Western Region of Nigeria, as features editor of the Daily Express, and as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. He served for several years as a professor of English at the University of Lagos, a position from which he retired in 1980.

While at the University of Lagos he was co-editor of the literary magazine Black Orpheus.

In 1982, along with his wife Ebun Odutola (a professor and former director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos), he founded the PEC Repertory Theatre in Lagos.

The late J. P. Clark, until his death was a renowned literature writer, an Emeritus Professor of Literature, and also an elder Stateman.