The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is preparing to release a book that will contain all of the party’s manifestos since its inception.
The “Manifesto Scroll of the National Democratic Congress 1992 – 2020” will serve as a documented statement of the NDC’s policies, purposes, and objectives, released in advance of each Parliamentary and Presidential election in which the party has participated.
The goal of combining the party’s manifestos into one booklet is to improve its information and knowledge-sharing agenda by providing easy access to the party’s social contracts and pledges to the people of Ghana.
The 759-page book, which will be released next month, was also constructed with the conviction that manifestos played important roles not only in the contemporary democratic era but also in the country’s intellectual culture and social sciences.
Significance
The National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, told the Daily Graphic ahead of the launch that the book would be the second in a series of books the party intended to publish as a compilation of its various records and another strategy of reorganising the party for victory in the upcoming general election and subsequent elections.
He stated that the book will provide readers with the chance to learn about and comprehend the party’s views and positions on a variety of issues facing the country, including agriculture, energy, health, and rural development, among others.
“The important thing about having them in a compilation like this is that you’re able to identify common trends that will tell you the thinking of the NDC.
“You’ll notice common threads that run through, even if the details differ from one electoral cycle to the next,” he said.
Mr Nketiah, who wrote the introduction to the book when he was the party’s General Secretary, praised the author for giving people a fair idea of where the NDC came from and where it was headed, even though the documents contained were already available to anyone.
Inspiration
The collection, according to the author, Israel Yao Dzantor, was inspired by recommendations he made to the party in a dissertation he authored while studying at the University of Ghana (UG).
Mr Dzantor, the Librarian at the NDC John Evans Atta Mills Memorial Research Library Annex, stated that as a former organiser of the University of Education (UEW), Winneba Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN), and a devout member of the party, he was inspired to use his skills for the benefit of the party and the country at large.
“We are thinking of a bigger project for the NDC and Ghana. We hope that after all our histories are compiled, we then think of something like an encyclopaedia whereby we update every year; writing something on past executives and their biographies, as well as the contributions of notable persons,” he said.
