Saigomi recalls time with GC

RUSSELL Saigomi recalls well the words the late Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare said to him while he was a junior staffer in the Prime Minister’s media unit.
“Sir Michael said: ‘By the time I’m walking with my stick, I want to see every Papua New Guinean with their heads up, hands in their pockets and I will die happy’,”Saigomi said during a conversation with the great man and had asked him at his home at NBC in Wewak about how he wanted to see Papua New Guinea before his time came.
“This is something I always tell my friends whenever we tell stories about Sir Michael and I believe his dream for us (PNG) was to be happy.”
Saigomi, who was with the Prime Minister’s media unit for 12 years, said it was his dream in high school to work closely with Sir Michael.
“I am happy I fulfilled my dream and got to get closer to Sir Michael and serve him before he left,” he said.
“He treated us like his sons then his officers.
“I joined the Prime Ministers media unit in 2007 as a media officer.
“I went there from EMTV and my first assignment was with the Grand Chief.
“While on holiday in Madang, and the Manam volcano erupted and I was called to cover the story.
“When I arrived in Madang, Sir Michael had already arrived.
“Kora Nou, the PM’s media director at the time, saw me and asked me to follow them to cover Sir Michael’s visit to Manam and the care centres,
“The next day, I got on the chopper with Sir Michael and went to Manam. Sir Michael saw me and asked who I worked for and where I was from.
“I told him I worked for EMTV and I was part Sepik and Madang.
“He then told Nou: ‘Get that guy in and employ him’.
“That’s how I got into the Prime Minister’s department.
“When I got in, it was election time and it was my first job with him (Sir Michael).
“The first flight I took with him as a staffer was from Port Moresby to Buka.
“He didn’t know that I joined the media unit so when he saw me, he asked if EMTV had sent me but one of Sir Michael’s press officers, Rodney Kamus, told him that I had joined.
“Sir Michael, looked at me with a faint smile and said: ‘Welcome son.’
“He treated us fairly and he talked to us like his sons rather than staff.
“We have a lot of memories with him and it’s a big loss.
“Through Sir Michael, I got to know the Somare family well and I became very close to them.”
Saigomi said he had recent recordings and photos of Sir Michael which would be his cherished memories of the father of the nation.

Take on Sir Michael’s vision: Yoto

WESTERN Governor Taboi Awi Yoto has urged the younger generation of leaders to take on the vision that Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare had for Papua New Guinea .
Yoto, who addressed the National Haus Krai at the Sir Guise Stadium in Port Moresby last Wednesday, said it was now time for the younger leaders to take on from where late Sir Michael and the other fathers of the nation had left off.
“I see this next five or 10 year as a year of the passing era,” he said.
Kable Olewale, the eldest son of late Sir Ebia Olewale, recalled the history of his father and Sir Michael relating back to the administrative college now Pacific Institute of Leadership and Governance and teacher’s college days with other leaders in the likes of Sir Joseph Nombre, Sir Cecil Abel, Sir Albert Maori Kiki and others.
“From the early 1970s leading up to independence, they wanted transformation,” Olewale said.
“That we guide with our lives our national identify, integrity and self-respect.
“That we reject violence and seek consciousness as a means of solving our problems in the communities.
“And that our national relations are won by honest hard work from our founding fathers.”
“We value you Sir Michael for our lives.
“To Mama (Lady) Veronica we thank you all for allowing your husband and father to be with us.”