Fresh from the prestigious Jackson School of Mass Communications at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Inatimi Spiff in the mid 1980s, Spiff found work as a reporter at the Enugu-based New Outlook newspaper, then as Lagos correspondent for the Kaduna based Today newspaper before joining the Daily Times Group as a senior reporter with TimesWeek magazine.
He won the Financial Reporter of the year (1991) prize in the maiden edition of the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence (DAME) for the depth and clarity of his analysis of issues in the financial sector before joining the African Guardian magazine as a senior writer and head of the business desk.
It was then that he made his pivot to the corporate world, joining the reputation management team of the Nigerian Breweries Plc as a Media Relations Assistant. His dexterity and passion for the job got him a cross departmental promotion as a Field Sales Manager where he engaged in the direct moving of the company’s brands to the final consumers.
In 2001, he joined the Nigerian Communications Commission as part of the elite team that set the Commission on a sound footing. He served in various senior positions until he disengaged in 2019 to pursue his private interests, including writing.
Surviving the Storms is a vivid portrayal of the contradictions in the life of Kuro, an adolescent trying to come to terms with his existence in the city of Port Harcourt in the years following the end of the Nigerian civil war. This racy account evokes the exuberance of youth, the challenges of parenthood and the importance of a good education.
Having spent part of his boyhood with his grandfather in the war zone, Kuro emerged after the guns went silent as a rather irrepressible lad both in boarding school as well as at home with his parents during school holidays. His struggles during his passage to manhood is narrated by the author with humour and insight, providing a slice of life in Nigeria in the 1970s.
Read excerpts here…
The New Gong 