FEBRUARY 26 2022
I take this opportunity to pay homage to the memory of our country’s leading founding father, the Great Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare.
Saturday, February 26, 2022 is the first anniversary of Sir Michael’s death – a death that touched men and women, boys and girls, urban residents and rural folk just as equally and profoundly through the length and breadth of our beloved Papua New Guinea.
At no one single time before or after our Independence, did one man’s departure from this world affect Papua New Guineans as overwhelmingly as Sir Michael’s. But then, no man had lived and dedicated his life quite the way Sir Michael had done to give wings to his vision, during a time of many limitations, for the unity of a thousand tribe of peoples into a single nation. With little, Sir Michael and his band of visionaries dared to make the dream of a sovereign Papua New Guinea come to reality.
Today, we stand proud as a Nation of a Thousand Tribes, taking our place among everyone else in the world, believing in the promises laying before us and taking advantage of our endowments and blessings. We continue to enjoy the vibrancy of our democracy while drawing strength from our cultural heritage as we look forward to the possibilities within us to achieve a truly united, homogeneous society where wealth is equitably shared by all and each and every citizen can live up to their fullest God-given potential. This is the dream central to Sir Michael’s vision, as espoused under the National Goals and Directive Principles and which we continue to work for today.
I take this time to thank once more all our People throughout the country who have shown such depth of love and kindness to our great founding father, for the way you celebrated his life at his passing. Your love and sense of loss demonstrated the impact the late Sir Michael had on our country and each of our lives.
As the leadership of our country transitions into the hands of the next generation of Papua New Guineans, I take this opportunity to appeal to each one of us to continue expressing our love and gratitude to Sir Michael by advocating and living the things he lived for – a united Papua New Guinea. We must cease ethnic divisions and every other thing that separates us and work at creating a safe and harmonious Papua New Guinea as he had initially envisaged.
I pay tribute to his enormous memory. Thank you, Sir Michael, from all of us your children. We see your face in our flag; we hear your voice in the words of the National Anthem; we feel the hope for a better tomorrow every time we look into the eyes of our children. And we vow to do our best for our beloved Papua New Guinea.
You were our best, our greatest champion, our country’s brightest light. Gone but never to be forgotten.
Papua New Guinea will live on, and so your legacy.
We thank God for your life.
Hon. James Marape, MP
Prime Minister of Papua New Guiner
Thank you PM Marape. Your statement has indeed summed up the great job our Grand Chief had done to mould our great nation up to this time last year when the whole nation mourned his passing.
The legacy is: Let’s continue to maintain the unity of 1000-plus tribes so we can full fill his dreams and the dreams of the others who put this great nation together as one.