[1] Okuk first led protests against unfair labor practices, and then once elected to office, worked to reserve sectors of the economy for citizens as a method of returning a complex economic role to Papua New Guineans.
In the post-independence decade, Okuk built a coalition of minority political factions which forced a successful change of government, in which he became Deputy Prime Minister.
His participation in sports and the Papua New Guinea Volunteer Rifles gained him respect and gave him experience in leadership which found expression in his later political activities.
Consensus is achieved only after intensive discussion within the group, when all parties are satisfied that their position has been heard and understood, even if they maintain diverging opinions and undertake different actions.
An indigenous man who concerned himself with other than strictly parochial matters without cutting himself off from the uneducated populace was dangerous because he betrayed a sophistication that put him outside expatriate control.
Okuk considered his most significant contribution to the independence process getting elected to the House to assure the needed majority, and helping to persuade others, especially Highlands, parliamentarians to vote for self-government.
Because of his aggressive localization efforts, Okuk was shuffled three times within one term of office and finally resigned from the administration he had served under when Papua New Guinea gained its independence.
In describing Okuk, Standish saw "A strong-faced intense man with a wry humour and shrewd charm, he shelters some bitter memories and can be quick to anger."
Repeatedly in the literature, the hallmark of leadership, especially in the Highlands, has been described as twofold: big men "achieve their position through their powers of oratory and their ability to obtain and deploy wealth through transactions with exchange partners".
He worked steadily in political activism since the first House of Assembly in 1964, standing in two by-elections in 1968 and 1970, setting up his coffee buying business and campaigning for two years afterwards in Chimbu until the 1972 elections.
[15] After winning the election for the Chimbu Regional seat in late February to early March 1972, Okuk was first given the position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees in the National Parliament in the newly formed coalition government.
On 23 November 1972, Okuk criticized the Bougainville project as not benefiting the bulk of the local population (arguing in support of Momis' motion), pointing out that Australia had negotiated the deal on the behalf of Papua New Guinea, and predicting that reform in favour of the landowners could avert violent confrontation later.
He felt Papua New Guinea was over-burdened by a top-heavy public service and a redundant and expensive provincial government system supported by this grant, while education was neglected.
When campaigning for the Chimbu Regional seat, he had emphasized local economic issues, but once in Parliament, he worked to persuade the other Highlands Members to vote for immediate self-government and set an early date for independence.
Okuk counted as one of his highest priorities and most valued contributions to bring the infrastructure for development to remote communities, enabling smallholders to get their products to market.
In the previous period, Okuk oriented his political action towards instigating legislation, using the institutions of government, to achieve nationalistic aspirations, and returning a complex economic role to the indigenous population.
Okuk formed a corresponding parliamentary group, called the Peoples Unified Front, "in an attempt to bring together UP members and Papuans into a coherent opposition coalition".
[31] The matter was taken up again in the next sitting of Parliament (May 1978) where another member of the United Party, with the backing of Sir Tei Abal, used the same mechanism to attempt to remove Okuk from the Opposition leadership.
[citation needed] The media reporting did not relate the details of what happened on 23 May 1978, which Okuk described as a confrontation in which Highlands members from both sides of government came to vote on the new Leader of the Opposition.
The story claimed that Clement Poiye, Nebare Kamun, and Robert Kakie Yabara were "dragged up" to the PUF benches, while Suinavi Otio had joined in on his own, and "In one exchange, Mr. Okuk and Prime Minister, Mr. Somare called each other liars.
Premdas, a university lecturer and outspoken critic, described the state of emergency as enacted "almost in desperation", and "invidious", since it "was extended only in the Highlands provinces where the bulk of the support of the opposition parties was located.
When he had been Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation previously, he had attempted to completely localize the management of Air Niugini, and this had apparently been the reason for his reshuffle in the Somare Ministry.
"Mr Okuk's intervention was vindicated, in part, by the release in late June [1980] of the Ombudsman Commission's Interim Report on Air Niugini which analysed the financial decline of the company and suggested that, "upon the penthouse level where management lives, we discovered a den of iniquity" (Hegarty 1982: 462).
[39] Okuk directly negotiated the purchase of the Dash-7 aircraft from the manufacturer in Canada, rather than working through brokers and agents, who were the source of the alleged "Ten Percent" commissions.
World market prices for coffee and copper fell during the two-year tenure of the Chan-Okuk, and the government stringency which this necessitated did not bode well for the upcoming 1982 general elections.
[43] The success of this process owes much to Okuk's demonstrated leadership in the handling of his defeat at the polls in the 1982 Chimbu Regional election, and the loss of most of his National Party members.
After his court victory, Akepa Miakwe of Bena-Bena, in the Eastern Highlands, then stepped down allowing Okuk to run in a by-election in Unggai-Bena, the constituency of his wife's clan.
The long-awaited United Party withdrawal from the government took place in August 1984, and Okuk put forth a motion to dissolve parliament and hold a general election.
Bringing the Motion during that very short period between the time the courts removed him from office and the subsequent by-election, i.e. during the one sitting of Parliament Okuk would miss, effectively excluded him from negotiating positions for National Party Members in the new coalition from a point of strength.
Okuk remained a backbencher until he joined forces with Wingti and Chan to bring a No-Confidence Motion in November 1985, a year and a half from the next general elections.