Rio should not be demeaned below his actual status. Will NPF please believe that till 2002 NPC was a chicken flu ridden, featherless, non crowing penniless cock..? The sick cock, some disgruntled congressmen, fractured NDM and some frustrated political leaders merged and re-structured the then NPC into NPF. All this trading took place under the initiative of late Khekiho Zhimomi (MP/RS). He made huge monetary contributions, most consultative meetings took place at his Zhimomi Mansion-Chekiye and joint party meetings were held at his Chekiye market complex presently Zhimomi Tata showroom. The beautiful speeches of our great orators like Rio, Khekiho, Thenucho, K. Theria, E.T.Ezung etc are still ringing in my ears even today. In November 2002, Rio was unanimously named to be the party legislature’s leader and to lead the 2003 elections campaign. His leadership in NPF made a huge impact of bringing the party to power for 3 successive terms and not forgetting his leadership enabled NPF to spread its wings to all over Naga inhabited areas and today NPF have MLAs in Manipur too. This is a remarkable feat no Naga leader could achieve till date. I have this on record since I was press secretary to our late leader Khekiho for 21 years and this transition in Nagaland regional party took place while I was on duty performing various typing and paper works. But sorry, I had to give up my membership from NPF in 2008 because of its growing communalism, autocracy, pessimism and rampant corruptions under the nose of the present party leadership
Henceforth, whoever or whichever party comes to power should have the will and determination to do away with egoism, nepotism, pessimism and scale down corruptions. Rome was not built in a day so if Naga people starts hating all evils for a prospective land, it’s never too late.
But, I guess NPF should have given peace a chance instead of passing death sentence to its own life support systems which means sure suicide!! This is the mind of an independent citizen, no offence intended towards anybody or group please.
Samuel Sumi, Diphupar
