Vice President Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang has charged the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to deliberately preserve its institutional memory, cautioning that political history does not preserve itself.
She gave the charge when she launched six historiographies documenting the evolution of the NDC at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in Accra, on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama.
According to the Vice President, the six publications spanning thousands of pages are critical to understanding the party’s contribution to Ghana’s Fourth Republic and its grounding in social democracy.
“Throughout this journey, the party has remained guided by its social democratic principles, that is a commitment to social justice, equal opportunity and the conviction that national development must benefit all sections of society with particular attention to the vulnerable,” she stated on Tuesday, October 13, 2026.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang commended the National Chairman, the Functional Executive Committee, researcher Mr. Israel and the Book Launch Committee for what she described as painstaking work.
“Ladies and gentlemen, over time political parties become repositories of ideas, decisions and experiences that form part of the country’s history. But institutional memory does not preserve itself. Eventually, important parts of the story become difficult to reconstruct,” she warned.
She noted that newspaper reports, party correspondence, campaign materials and records of debates become invaluable historical sources decades later, but bringing them together requires painstaking research and preservation.
The Vice President detailed the content of the publications. The Constitutional Scroll of the NDC, 1992-2026, traces the development of the party’s constitutional arrangements, while the Manifesto Scroll, 1992 to 2024, brings together all manifestos on which the party contested elections since the Fourth Republic.
“The remaining four volumes draw on extensive documentary resources covering important political developments. Two document the NDC in the context of the Fourth Republic. The others focus on an important period of mobilisation and transition to multiparty democracy. Together these volumes provide thousands of pages of material in an organized record,” she said.
She said the publications must serve beyond party archives and become tools for civic and political education.
“Future researchers must be able to trace the evolution of our policy commitments, the ideas that inform them and the circumstances in which they were developed,” she said, adding that civic education requires familiarity with governance institutions and constitutional arrangements.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang urged party executives to ensure wide accessibility.
“It is my hope that these publications will reach libraries, research institutions, private spaces and public officials too. I particularly encourage our regional and constituency executives to make them available in their offices alongside other important historical documents,” she appealed.
She said the NDC’s history is intertwined with Ghana’s democratic struggles.
“The history of the NDC is also the history of the ideas, commitments and political struggles that have shaped our way, in government and in opposition. This initiative should therefore encourage further efforts to document and preserve Ghana’s history,” she said.
“May these publications inform future scholarship, strengthen political education and help successive generations appreciate the NDC’s contribution to Ghana’s democratic development,” she added before declaring the books duly launched.
