FIVE YEARS ago we farewelled GC Sir Michael Somare with the most deserving tributes around the country. We also paused to remember him as someone whose political life is synonymous with the birth of PNG as a nation state as much as it is about his political journey. A father of the nation.

For many of us that watched him daring to carry the political mantle early in the pre-independence period, his unwavering enthusiasm to lead grew like a candle from a flicker to a national light. While much of the population at the time may have harbored doubts about the Territory’s readiness for independence, he made everyone realize arguing for independence was not evil but inevitable.

Political pioneers come only once in a life time but they last much longer than their chronological age. The Chief was the main man, a centre of attention in the mandated territory with his group of pioneers that emerged with him in the same era. They include members of the bully beef club that formed, initially and for a time, the spine and mainstay of the pioneer PANGU Party which vetted and abetted the quest for independence.

Many of us that followed after in civil service careers and served in institutions at the time around which new countries evolve, still ask: how could a pioneer team of many genuine leaders have emerged in the same era.

My attempts to explain has always been something like this. PNG came of age because the excitement, the challenges, the doubts about self determination prompted and nudged the Chief and those with him and around him to exercise a level of political maturity, bravery – as well as faith – far ahead of the time most would have envisaged, politically speaking, to face up to the unknown future to nationhood.

Remembering you quietly Chief but always fondly and beyond every anniversary.

Simon Pentanu