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AZ Jami[/caption]
Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Oct. 6: A former ‘kilonser’ (minister) of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (IM) AZ Jami, who announced his retirement from primary and active membership of NSCN on July 22, 2018, passed away at Zion Hospital in Dimapur on Sat. Oct. 6 after a prolonged illness.
The 79-year-old Jami from Chudi village in Wokha district was undergoing treatment for the past two-three years for kidney failure and breathed his last at Zion Hospital at around 4 pm, informed his son-in-law. He is survived by his wife, six daughters, four sons and 16 grandchildren.
The funeral service of the senior Naga leader will be held on Sunday Oct. 7, 1 pm at his private residence at Diphupar 'B' village in Dimapur.
Jami was born on Oct. 22, 1938. According to 'A token of memoirs of AZ Jami' – a booklet written by Jamir and made available to
Eastern Mirror by his family mentions on Saturday – Jami joined the Naga freedom movement in March 1956 at Lotsu of Lotha Region and served as QM clerk in the rank of sergeant (havildar) in the Naga Home Guards. At the end of July, 1956 he was promoted to second Lieut., after the ‘Kohima capital attack’ in which he participated.
At the end of 1957, he took study leave for six years and after coming back from college, he joined the Naga army again in 1963 and was given the rank of major.
In 1967, he resigned from Naga army and was elected as Tatar (MP) and in 1968 he was elected as deputy speaker of the Tatar from Lotha region and was also appointed by the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN) as ambassador to Albania.
Jami served as the executive member of the NNC central council and general secretary of the NNC (1993-94). In 1994, he formally resigned from the general secretary of NNC and joined the NSCN (IM) where he served as CAO (central administrative officer) of Lotha Region, deputy kilonser of Ministry of Information and Publicity (MIP) and then inducted as a cabinet kilonser for law and justice of NSCN/GPRN.
In his memoir, Jami mentions that in 2005, he defected to NSCN (K) for three years and later in 2008 came back to NSCN (IM).
Jami, in his memoir written in 2005, sums up his life as ‘a tale of a poor lonely man, in spite of which he had been both a social and a religious activist.’
“I had been a soldier, a parliamentarian, and an administrator. My long service for the Naga nation is full of ascents and descents but fully satisfied. I have contributed my mite for the cause of the Naga people and the Naga nation and more specifically for the Naga Christendom,” he wrote.
