“My Father has surprised me on many occasions, and he has done so tonight as well”, Mr. Arthur Somare stated during the memorial service of his father the late Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare held last night at the Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby. Mr. Somare said that he can only imagine how difficult the path to Independence were to have so many thousands of different people over a thousand tribes, over a thousand different languages and dialects and to unit those people together would have been a big challenge for Papua New Guinea. “For a few brave men who looked down at the issues of prejudice and colonialism, who stared into the future, which was unknown on what PNG would be like 50 years on.” “Will we remain as one people still, will we have fortitude to walk together, to stare down development and 50 years on, those questions still ponder our leaders of today.” “Sir Michael Somare’s greatest achievement together with his cohort is not the development today but the unification of one country, under one banner as one people to wrestle and take on the challenge of being a free and independent nation.” “The desire that they have a sovereign nation, the desire that we have a constitutional democracy to have strong laws that our leaders today and our bureaucracy need to continue to uphold in leadership in all segments of life.” “Not only in politics, not only in bureaucracy but in churches, in societies, in communities, and in villages,” Mr. Somare said. He added that every Papua New Guinean has a calling to bring development to its people, to enable its people to be prosperous, to be healthy, to have education, to have access to health and to have access to better infrastructure. “These are the struggles of 1975 and some of the struggles we still have today.” “It is for us the younger people of today to deliver back for Papua New Guinea.” If I recall anything from my father’s teaching is to be vigilant, work hard, serve your people so that tomorrow we can live a better life.”